Khartoum (state) and November. The 2008 population census estimates the population of Khartoum state to be about 5,274,321 capita, composed of various tribes of the Sudan. The population is 79% urban, and 74% of the state's population reported their region of origin to be outside Khartoum. The areas of Omdurman and the rural South are inhabited by the tribe of Gamowia, as well as by the Kordofani tribes displaced to these areas by the drought and desertification that hit their areas in the early- and mid-1980s. These are the tribes of the Kababish and the Kawahla. In the northern countryside of Karari
Siege of Khartoum to the north by the Blue Nile and to the west by the White Nile. To defend the river banks, he created a flotilla of gunboats from nine small paddle-wheel steamers, until then used for communication purposes, which were fitted with guns and protected by metal plates. In the southern part of the town, which faced the open desert, he prepared an elaborate system of trenches, makeshift Fougasse-type land mines, and wire entanglements. Also, the surrounding country was controlled by the Shagia tribe, which was hostile to the Mahdi. By early April 1884, the tribes north of Khartoum rose in