The removal of Mr Turabi has cleared the way for the government to make its peace with two exiled northern politicians, Sadiq al-Mahdi, leader of the Umma Party, and Muhammad Osman Mirghani, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party.
Families were exiled from Diego Garcia, in the Chagos Islands, in the 1960s and 70s to make way for a US Indian Ocean airbase, and had to leave for Mauritius.