Crisis in Darfur, Sudan

The conflict in Darfur dates back to early 2003 when black Africans from Darfur rebelled against the country's Arab Muslim leadership demanding improved infrastructure in the region, proceeds from oil wealth and a power-sharing government. The Sudanese government retaliated by sending in government forces to quell the rebellion.

The government also reportedly organized and supplied the Janjaweed militia to combat the rebels.

The main rebel groups involved in the conflict are the Sudan Liberation Army/Movement, or SLA/M, and the Justice and Equality Movement, or JEM. Both groups have demanded equal representation in the government and an end to the economic disparity between black Africans and Arabs in Sudan.

The violence in the mostly arid desert region has driven millions of Darfur villagers from their homes. Most are in disease riddled refugee camps in Darfur while some have fled to crowded camps in neighboring Chad.

The U.S. Agency for International Development has characterized the crisis in Darfur as the "worst humanitarian crisis in the world today."
Few aid agencies have been able to penetrate the region because of the violence. Those that have gained access report alarming scenes of starvation, disease and mass killings.

An estimated 180,000 people have died and 2 million have been displaced in the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region of western Sudan where militias have targeted civilians in attacks the United Nations warns could rival the 1994 genocide in Rwanda in which more than 800,000 people died. "The people of Darfur are suffering a catastrophe -- terrible crimes have been committed against them," U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said.

The killings of mostly black African Muslims have been blamed on an Arab militia known as the Janjaweed. Like their victims, the Janjaweed are Muslim, but are accused of ethnic atrocities, including burning and destroying villages in parts of Darfur and of slaughtering men, women and children.

Human rights groups and refugees also accuse the militia of mass rape, characterizing the situation as ethnic cleansing and genocide.