Since early 2003, Sudanese government soldiers and their proxy militia, known as the Janjaweed, have fought rebel groups in the western region of Darfur. Initially, the government strategy largely involved systematic assaults against civilians from the same ethnic groups as the rebel forces. The targeted victims have been mostly from the Fur, Zaghawa, and Masaalit ethnic groups.
Hundreds of thousands of civilians have died from violence, disease, and starvation, and thousands of women have been raped. More than 2.5 million civilians have been driven from their homes, their villages torched and property stolen. Thousands of villages have been systematically destroyed and more than 230,000 people have fled to neighboring Chad. But most of those displaced are trapped inside Darfur. Although large-scale government attacks against civilians have declined since 2005, millions remain at risk. Most of the displaced are not returning home for fear that their villages will be attacked again. The Sudanese government still bears primary responsibility for the danger to civilians, but the increasing fragmentation of the rebel groups and their use of violence have contributed to the high level of insecurity.
Darfur is home to more than 30 ethnic groups, all of which are Muslim. The Janjaweed militias—recruited, armed, trained, and supported by the Sudanese government—are drawn from several of the groups in Darfur who identify themselves as Arab. They have used racial and ethnic slurs while attacking and raping the targeted groups.
The Khartoum-based government's use of ethnically and racially targeted violence in Darfur resembles similar actions in southern Sudan before a tenuous 2005 peace agreement ended conflict there. Governmentsponsored actions in both regions have included:
INFLAMING ethnic conflict
IMPEDING international humanitarian access, resulting in deadly conditions of life for displaced civilians
BOMBING civilians from aircraft
MURDERING and RAPING civilians
Because of substantial evidence that "acts of genocide or related crimes against humanity were occurring or immediately threatened," in 2004 the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum declared a Genocide Emergency for Darfur. That same year, the U.S. government determined that genocide had been committed in Darfur. In January 2005, the UN Commission of Inquiry concluded that "crimes against humanity and war crimes have been committed in Darfur and may be no less serious and heinous then genocide." In March 2005, the UN Security Council asked the International Criminal Court to investigate the Darfur situation. The court has issued arrest warrants for a high-ranking Sudanese government official and a militia leader on charges of crimes against humanity.
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