Whilst Darfur may not be on news headlines around the globe, the region is far from safe and stable.
Initiated in 2003, the “Darfur Genocide” refers to the ongoing mass murder and rape of the 7 million members of the Darfuri race in Western Sudan. 18 years of efforts, interventions and laws have been unable to resolve this crisis. Humanitarian boundaries have long been forgotten as Darfuri homes are looted and farms are burned. The men and women are both subjected to persecution, rape, and sexual violence. So why has this crisis continued for more than a decade? In 2003, the Sudan Liberian Army and the Justice and Equality Movement, both non-Arab rebel groups in Darfur, accused the government of neglecting the region and took it upon themselves to tackle the issue. However, there seems to be much more to the issue than just two rebel groups fighting against each other. Circumstances are different when the government itself is aiding this initiative of ethnic cleansing.
The genocide is being executed by a group of government-armed and government-funded Arab militias known as the Janjaweed (which loosely translates to ‘devils on horseback’) or Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The Janjaweed work to destroy the life, livelihood, education, employment, family and quite literally, everything of the Darfuris. Whether it involves torturing the Darfuris through Sudanese Air Strikes and that too, using Russian-supplied Antonov bombers, or burning food stocks and enslaving women and children, Janjaweed militia raids have done it all. What's more, throwing dead bodies into wells to contaminate water supplies and stealing Darfuri livestock is a very common practice. The United Nations estimates that in the first 10 days of the current assault, an additional 34,000 people were displaced and most of them were women and children. The main rebel factions, the Sudanese Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), have long been rivals. Over 480,000 people have been killed and over 2.8 million people have been displaced as of spring 2020.
Despite such problematic conditions, the joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping mission that deployed to Darfur in 2008 ultimately failed to halt the government's ethnic-cleansing program. The International Criminal Court has charged President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who has led the country for more than 25 years, with several counts of genocide and crimes against humanity in Darfur.
Nonetheless, it appears improbable that the court's arrest warrant will be carried out.
International economic sanctions against Sudan have been ineffective because they are biased.
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