arfur is an impoverished area the size of France in the west of Africa’s biggest country, Sudan.
Sudan has been ravaged by a 21-year civil war. The war divides the Islamic North against the Christian South. It is a conflict which began in the 1950s, with a Northern government-led
program of forced Islamicisation resisted by the South with the aid of rebel organizations. Government operations against the rebels declined after a 1969 coup.
However, in 1983 a crisis in the North over economics and resources raised the stakes and the war flared up once more. The attempted introduction of Sharia law and a government-led offensive to control the South’s newly-discovered oil resources, has so far seen the loss of over two million lives and the creation of more than five million refugees.
Early in 2005 however, a peace agreement was signed between the government and the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) which represents the south. In two stages over the next six years this will enable the people of the South to claim autonomy and with a free vote, eventually declare independence from the North.
The crisis in Darfur, however, is one that is apart from the war between the north and south. In Darfur a three-year conflict is continuing that has displaced two million people into camps, either within Darfur or across the border in Chad, and claimed, according to conservative estimates, 180,000 lives. This conflict now is mainly between the Janjaweed (Janjaweed is a local corruption of the Arabic phrase “devils on horseback carrying G 3 rifles”), backed by government militia against the people of Darfur. The intent is ultimately ethnic cleansing. The Janjaweed are Arabs and the people of Darfur are African.
Although ethnic identities have traditionally been rather fluid in Darfur – a generation ago ‘Arabs’ who wanted to give up their nomadic way of life could join the Fur black African tribe simply by taking up farming – Darfur’s victims unanimously believe they are being targeted because they are black. (Religion is not an issue, both sides are Muslim.)
Unless we guarantee security for those in need of aid we may see the greatest ever
calamity... The international community could face a catastrophe in Darfur. To avoid this it calls for full involvement of the African Union and
UN.
Antonio Guterres
UN High Commissioner for Refugees UNHCR.
One displaced man in Kalma camp says firmly he and his fellow villagers were targeted “because of the
color, the black color,” he says, pulling the skin on the back of his hand. “They attacked us because we are Fur, 100 percent Fur.” (Darfur means `“homeland of the Fur.”) Another Fur woman says the men who attacked her village screamed: “We are going to kill you. We are going to use you women, and we are not going to leave anybody. Because you are black, we are going to finish you all.”
The reason the Sudanese Government is targeting the Masalit – and two other African tribes, the Zaghawa and the Fur – is that these three ethnic groups form the backbone of the rebel movements that took up arms in Darfur in 2003 to protect their communities against a 20-year campaign by government-backed militias. The rebels demanded “a united democratic Sudan” and an end to political and economic marginalization.
The complicity of the Government of Sudan and the Janjaweed militiamen is creating a humanitarian emergency that may eventually take as many lives as the Rwandan genocide. Relief workers are warning that hundreds of thousands of African civilians will die in the next 12 months unless the international community pulls out all the stops to pump relief into Darfur by all conceivable routes – with or without the consent of Khartoum.
The Janjaweed roar into the village in pick-up trucks, or on the back of camels and horses. Firing up to 600 rounds a minute from their German G3 assault rifles, they kill the men, steal the animals that are the Darfurians’ wealth, and loot the homes. As the coup de grace to make sure victims will not be eager to return to the site of this terror, the attackers systematically rape the women and burn homes, leaving most villages nothing more than charred ruins.
The countryside is largely empty of inhabitants. Those chased out of their homes – well over half the population of 1.7 million – now take refuge in miserable makeshift camps clustered around the region’s main cities. Some 180,000 Darfurians have fled to
neighboring Chad, where UNHCR have established refugee camps to care for most of them.
The UN has called Darfur the world’s worst humanitarian crisis today.
(From Fides Service | Other Sources: Refugees, Missions Tomorrow, The Table)