Darfur
The uprising began virtually unnoticed in February 2003. The victims are the non-Arab or African tribal groups of Darfur, primarily the Fur, the Massaleit, and the Zaghawa, but also the Tunjur, the Birgid, the Dajo, and others. These people have long been living in poverty, and in recent years the National Islamic Front (NIF) regime, based in Sudan’s capital of Khartoum, has refused to stop violent Arab military raids of African villages in Darfur.
Since February 2003, the Sudanese government-sponsored Janjaweed militia have used rape, displacement, organized starvation, threats against aid workers, and mass murder. Violence, disease, and displacement continue to kill thousands of innocent Darfurians every month.
Up to 1 million people face genocide in Darfur (the western part of Sudan) as a result of an ongoing government campaign to destroy a portion of its population. Sudan, geographically Africa's largest country, has experienced civil war with only a ten-year pause since independence in 1956. More than 2 million people have been killed and twice that many have been forced to move in the long-running war between the governments of the north and people of the south. In Darfur, the Sudanese government is destroying African Muslim communities because some among them have challenged Khartoum's power. As in the conflict between north and south, in Darfur, ethnic and racial identities have also been part of the conflict.
About the size of Texas, the Darfur region of Sudan is home to racially mixed tribes of settled peasants, who identify as African, and nomadic herders, who identify as Arab. The majority of people in both groups are Muslim. In the ongoing genocide, African farmers and others in Darfur are being systematically displaced and murdered at the hands of the Janjaweed, a government-supported militia recruited from local Arab tribes. The genocide in Darfur has claimed 400,000 lives and displaced over 2,500,000 people. More than one hundred people continue to die each day; five thousand die every month.
Janjaweed assaults, typically conducted in concert with Khartoum’s regular military forces, have been destructive of both human life and livelihood: men and boys killed en masse, women and girls raped or abducted, and all means of agricultural production destroyed. Thriving villages have had buildings burned, water sources poisoned, irrigation systems torn up, food and seed stocks destroyed, and fruit trees cut down. Cattle have been looted on a massive scale, and most of those not looted have died from lack of water and food, as people flee into the inhospitable wastes of this dry region.
Thousands of innocent civilians continue to die from murder, disease and starvation every month. Today, millions of displaced civilians living in refugee camps are in dire need of international support as the violence continues.
Since February 2003, the Sudanese government-sponsored Janjaweed militia have used rape, displacement, organized starvation, threats against aid workers, and mass murder. Violence, disease, and displacement continue to kill thousands of innocent Darfurians every month.
Up to 1 million people face genocide in Darfur (the western part of Sudan) as a result of an ongoing government campaign to destroy a portion of its population. Sudan, geographically Africa's largest country, has experienced civil war with only a ten-year pause since independence in 1956. More than 2 million people have been killed and twice that many have been forced to move in the long-running war between the governments of the north and people of the south. In Darfur, the Sudanese government is destroying African Muslim communities because some among them have challenged Khartoum's power. As in the conflict between north and south, in Darfur, ethnic and racial identities have also been part of the conflict.
About the size of Texas, the Darfur region of Sudan is home to racially mixed tribes of settled peasants, who identify as African, and nomadic herders, who identify as Arab. The majority of people in both groups are Muslim. In the ongoing genocide, African farmers and others in Darfur are being systematically displaced and murdered at the hands of the Janjaweed, a government-supported militia recruited from local Arab tribes. The genocide in Darfur has claimed 400,000 lives and displaced over 2,500,000 people. More than one hundred people continue to die each day; five thousand die every month.
Janjaweed assaults, typically conducted in concert with Khartoum’s regular military forces, have been destructive of both human life and livelihood: men and boys killed en masse, women and girls raped or abducted, and all means of agricultural production destroyed. Thriving villages have had buildings burned, water sources poisoned, irrigation systems torn up, food and seed stocks destroyed, and fruit trees cut down. Cattle have been looted on a massive scale, and most of those not looted have died from lack of water and food, as people flee into the inhospitable wastes of this dry region.
Thousands of innocent civilians continue to die from murder, disease and starvation every month. Today, millions of displaced civilians living in refugee camps are in dire need of international support as the violence continues.