Darfur and Its Conflict

The Republic of Sudan, or Sudan as it more commonly known, is currently in a state of crisis. Darfur, in western Sudan, is in the middle of the worst humanitarian crisis in the world right now. They are on the brink of genocide, the deliberate killing of a very large number of people from a particular ethnic group or background.

Like Most civil wars the incidents have been occurring for over twenty years. The armed conflict began to get serious in February of 2003. It was then that the Sudanese government in cohorts with the Janjaweed militia engaged in civil strife with two rebel groups. The first of the rebel groups involved being the Liberation Movement Army/Movement (SLM/A), the second the Justice Equality Movement (JEW). The Janjaweed militia is not only targeting the rebels themselves but the civilians that belong to the same ethnic groups as well. This includes the Fur people, the Masaslit people, and the Zaghawa people. The Janjaweed militia became involved at the governments request in an effort to subdue the rebel movement. The government armed the militia with planes, tanks, cars, weapons and ammunition to equipt over 20,000 men.

The government and the Janjaweed combined have been destroying villages and removing anything that would be able to sustain life within them so that the people are forced to move. They are doing so through the use of bombs, fires, and raids. While in the villages the militia are committing murder, rape, and extensive assault. As of now two million people have been forcibly removed from their homes, 200,000 have fled to neighboring Chad, and between than 80,000 and 150,000 have died.

The government still denies that it is as deeply involved with the Janjaweed militia as it is. They have gone so far as to say that foreign journalists and human rights activists have fabricated the situation in Sudan. To the government the Janjaweed is able to be paged as a scape goat for their harmful doings. They have...