Darfur is a region of western Sudan. Dār is an Arabic word meaning "home [of]" – the region was named Dardaju while ruled by the Daju, who migrated from Meroë c. 350 AD, and it was renamed Dartunjur when the Tunjur ruled the area. Darfur was an independent sultanate for several hundred years until 1874, when it fell to the Sudanese warlord Rabih az-Zubayr. The region was later invaded and incorporated into Sudan by Anglo-Egyptian forces in 1916. As an administrative region, Darfur is divided into five federal states: Central Darfur, East Darfur, North Darfur, South Darfur and West Darfur. Because of the War in Darfur between Sudanese government forces and the indigenous population, the region has been in a state of humanitarian emergency and genocide since 2003. The factors include religious and ethnic rivalry, and the rivalry between farmers and herders.
The Baggāra or Chadian Arabs are a nomadic confederation of people of mixed Arab and Arabized indigenous African ancestry, inhabiting a portion of the Sahel mainly between Lake Chad and the Nile river near south Kordofan, numbering over six million. They are known as Baggara and Abbala in Sudan, and as Shuwa Arabs in Cameroon, Nigeria and Western Chad. The term Shuwa is said to be of Kanuri origin.
The Janjaweed are an Arab nomad militia group from the Sahel region that operates in Sudan, particularly in Darfur, and eastern Chad. They have also been speculated to be active in Yemen. According to the United Nations definition, Janjaweed membership consists of Arab nomad tribes from the Sahel, the core of whom are Abbala Arabs, traditionally employed in camel herding, with significant recruitment from the Baggara.
The Sudan Liberation Movement/Army is a Sudanese rebel group active in Darfur, Sudan. It was founded as the Darfur Liberation Front by members of three indigenous ethnic groups in Darfur: the Fur, the Zaghawa, and the Masalit, among whom were the leaders Abdul Wahid al-Nur of the Fur and Minni Minnawi of the Zaghawa.
The Rizeigat, or Rizigat, or Rezeigat are a Muslim and an Arab tribe of the nomadic Baggara people in Sudan's Darfur region and/or Chad region. The Rizeigat belong to the greater Baggara Arabs fraternity of Darfur, Kordofan and Chad, and speak Sudanese Arabic or Chadian Arabic. They are primarily nomadic herders and their journeys are dependent upon the seasons of the year. They are a branch of the Juhayna group. They are divided into the Abbala (camel-herding) Rizeigat, who live in northern Darfur and Chad, and the Baggara who inhabit south-east Darfur. In turn they are divided into several large clans, notably the Mahamid, Mahariya and Nawaiba. The ecological differences between the north and south of Sudan allowed for two different types of nomadism to evolve: camel herders in the north and cattle herders in the south. They are a substantial part of the Janjaweed turned Rapid Support Forces.
Adam Shapiro is an American co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a pro-Palestinian organization, the stated mission of which is to bring civilians from around the world to resist nonviolently the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. He became famous for visiting Yasser Arafat in his Mukataa in Ramallah while it was besieged during the March 2002 Israeli military operation in the West Bank and Gaza.
The War in Darfur, also nicknamed the Land Cruiser War, was a major armed conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan that began in February 2003 when the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rebel groups began fighting against the government of Sudan, which they accused of oppressing Darfur's non-Arab population. The government responded to attacks by carrying out a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Darfur's non-Arabs. This resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of civilians and the indictment of Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.
Nima Elbagir is a Sudanese journalist and an award-winning international television correspondent.
This is the bibliography and reference section for the Darfur conflict series. External links to reports, news articles and other sources of information may also be found below.
Throughout its history, Darfur has been the home to several cultures and kingdoms, such as the Daju and Tunjur kingdoms. The recorded history of Darfur begins in the seventeenth century, with the foundation of the Fur Sultanate by the Keira dynasty. The Sultanate of Darfur was initially destroyed in 1874 by the Khedivate of Egypt. In 1899, the government of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan recognized Ali Dinar as the Sultan of Darfur, in exchange for an annual tribute of 500 pound sterling. This lasted until Darfur was formally annexed in 1916. The region remained underdeveloped through the period of colonial rule and after independence in 1956. The majority of national resources were directed toward the riverine Arabs clustered along the Nile near Khartoum. This pattern of structural inequality and overly underdevelopment resulted in increasing restiveness among Darfuris. The influence of regional geopolitics and war by proxy, coupled with economic hardship and environmental degradation, from soon after independence led to sporadic armed resistance from the mid-1980s. The continued violence culminated in an armed resistance movement around 2003.
The Devil Came on Horseback is a documentary film by Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg illustrating the continuing Darfur Conflict in Sudan. Based on the book by former U.S. Marine Captain Brian Steidle and his experiences while working for the African Union. The film asks viewers to become educated about the ongoing genocide in Darfur and laments the failure of the US and others to end the crisis.
Musa Hilal is a Sudanese Arab tribal chief and militia leader and adviser to the Sudanese Minister of Internal Affairs. His Um Jalul clan exercised tribal leadership of the Arab Mahamid tribe in Darfur. The Mahamid are part of a larger confederation of camel-herding (Abbala) tribes of the Northern Rizeigat. Musa is the leader of the Janjaweed militia, which was responsible for a massive military campaign against civilians in Darfur in 2003, as part of a counterinsurgency effort against Darfur rebel groups. On 21 January 2008, the Federal Government of Sudan announced the nomination of Musa Hilal as the chief advisor of the Ministry of Federal Affairs in Sudan. This position allows Mr. Musa to coordinate with regional leaders surrounding Darfur, as well as with Arab tribal groups, on the relations of the military regime.
Brian Steidle is a former Marine Corps captain, military and security operations expert, and author who had worked on publicizing the Darfur conflict in Sudan. Steidle wrote a book, The Devil Came on Horseback, about his experience, which was turned into a documentary film that premiered at Sundance in 2007.
The Sultanate of Darfur was a pre-colonial state in present-day Sudan. It existed from 1603 to 24 October 1874, when it fell to the Sudanese warlord Rabih az-Zubayr, and again from 1898 to 1916, when it was occupied by the British and the Egyptians and was integrated into Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. At its peak in the late 18th and early 19th century it stretched all the way from Darfur in the west to Kordofan and the western banks of the White Nile in the east, giving it the size of present-day Nigeria.
Sudan–United Kingdom relations are foreign relations between Sudan and the United Kingdom. Sudan has an embassy in London whilst the United Kingdom has an embassy in Khartoum. Most of the recent relations between the two countries centre on the region of Darfur.
John Prendergast is an American human rights and anti-corruption activist as well as an author. He is the co-founder of The Sentry, an investigative and policy organization that seeks to disable multinational predatory networks that benefit from violent conflict, repression, and kleptocracy. Prendergast was the founding director of the Enough Project and was formerly director for African affairs at the National Security Council.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1574, adopted unanimously at a meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, on 19 November 2004, after recalling resolutions 1547 (2004), 1556 (2004) and 1564 (2004), the council welcomed political efforts to resolve the conflicts in Sudan and reiterated its readiness to establish a mission to support the implementation of a Comprehensive Peace Agreement.
The Invasion of Darfur was the military invasion and occupation of the Sultanate of Darfur by the British Empire and the Sultanate of Egypt from 16 March to 6 November 1916. The sultan of Darfur, Ali Dinar, had been reinstated by the British after their victory in the Mahdist War but during World War I he grew restive, refusing his customary tribute to the Sudanese government and showing partiality to the Ottoman Empire in 1915.
The Darfur genocide was the systematic killing of ethnic Darfuri people during the War in Darfur. The genocide, which was carried out against the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups, led the International Criminal Court (ICC) to indict several people for crimes against humanity, rape, forced transfer and torture. An estimated 200,000 people were killed between 2003 and 2005.
Tajammu al-Arabi, translated into English as Arab Gathering or Arab Alliance, was a Sudanese Arab tribal militia and political organization that operated in western Sudan and eastern Chad in the late 1980s under Libyan sponsorship. The organization was organized by tribal leaders and Islamic Legion militants in the context of the ethno-tribal conflicts that were taking place in Darfur between the Baggara Arabs and the Furs in those years. Although the organization claimed that its aim was solely to represent and defend the interests of Arab tribes, the organization was described by Gérard Prunier as "a militantly racist and pan-Arabist organization which stressed the 'Arab' character of the province." Scholars agree that Tajammu al-Arabi played an important role in the creation of the Janjaweed, which still operate in the region to this day.
