The Darfur conflict is a crisis in the Darfur region of western Sudan. Unlike the Second Sudanese Civil War, the current lines of conflict are seen to be ethnic and tribal, rather than religious.[1] One side of the armed conflict is composed mainly of the Sudanese military and the Janjaweed, a militia group recruited mostly from the Arab Baggara tribes of the northern Rizeigat, camel-herding nomads. The other side comprises a variety of rebel groups, notably the Sudan Liberation Movement and the Justice and Equality Movement, recruited primarily from the land-tilling non-Arab Fur, Zaghawa, and Massaleit ethnic groups. The Sudanese government, while publicly denying that it supports the Janjaweed, has provided money and assistance to the militia and has participated in joint attacks targeting the black African tribes from which the rebels draw support.[2] The conflict began in February of 2003.
The combination of decades of drought, desertification, and overpopulation are among the causes of the Darfur conflict, because the Baggara nomads searching for water have to take their livestock further south, to land mainly occupied by non-Arab farming communities.[3]
There are many casualty estimates, most concurring on a range within the hundreds of thousands. The United Nations (UN) estimates that the conflict has left as many as 450,000 dead from violence and disease.[4] Most non-governmental organizations use 200,000 to more than 400,000; the latter is a figure from the Coalition for International Justice that has since been cited by the UN. Sudan's government claims that over 9,000 people have been killed, although this figure is seen as a gross underestimate.[5][6] As many as 2.5 million are thought to have been displaced as of October 2006. [7] (See Counting deaths section, below)
The Sudanese government has suppressed information by jailing and killing witnesses since 2004 and tampered with evidence such as mass graves to eliminate their forensic values.[8][9][10] In addition, by obstructing and arresting journalists, the Sudanese government has been able to obscure much of what has gone on.[11][12][13][14] The mass media once described the conflict as both "ethnic cleansing" and "genocide," and now do so without hesitation. The United States government has described it as genocide,[15] although the UN has declined to do so. (See List of declarations of genocide in Darfur) In March 2007 the UN mission accused Sudan's government of orchestrating and taking part in "gross violations" in Darfur and called for urgent international action to protect civilians there.