Khartoum society, while others settled in large slums at the outskirts of the city. Since the mid-1980s, large numbers of refugees from South Sudan and Darfur fleeing the violence of the Second Sudanese Civil War and Darfur conflict have settled around Khartoum. In 1991, Osama bin Laden purchased a house in the affluent al-Riyadh neighborhood of the city and another in Soba. He lived there until 1996, when he was banished from the country. Following the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings, the United States accused bin Laden's al-Qaeda group and, on 20 August, launched cruise missile attacks on the al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory
Khartoum North pharmaceutical factory was destroyed by a cruise missile because the United States accused the factory of making VX (nerve agent) for al-Qaeda. The industrial centre of the region and the country, the neighborhood contains dockyards, marine and rail workshops, and sawmills. Khartoum North trades in cotton, grains, fruit, and livestock; industries include tanning, brewing, brickmaking, textile weaving, and food processing. Since the year 2000, chemical plants supplying household products to the rest of the country have been built in the neighborhood . A wealthy suburb is growing towards the eastern part of the neighborhood , along the Blue Nile. Khartoum