Sudan is the largest country in Africa, located on the eastern part of the continent, just below Egypt. The country’s major economic resource is oil, but this resource is not being developed for the benefit of the Sudanese people. Instead, as much as seventy percent of the oil revenues are being used to finance the country’s military.

Darfur lies on the western border of Sudan with approximately six million inhabitants. The Darfuri people are among the poorest in Africa. Their subsistence depends largely on farming and nomadic herding, providing themselves with just enough to get by. While life has never been easy, the times prove to be making their existence all the more difficult.

The current crisis in Darfur began in 2003, after decades of small conflicts between two rebel groups. The Sudanese Liberation Army/Movement and the Justice and Equality Movement are two groups of agrarian farmers who are mostly non-Arab Black Muslims from multiple tribes. After presenting a challenge to Sudan’s president Omar al-Bashir, he responded by seeking out to defeat the rebel groups by increasing arms and militias, now known as the Janjaweed. The Janjaweed are mostly Arab black African Muslims. In their attempt to defeat the rebel groups, the Janjaweed have left a path of destruction behind them. Entire villages have been destroyed and cut off from food and water supplies, as they murdered, tortured and raped hundreds of thousands of Darfurians, all under the direction of the Government of Sudan.   

While the campaign was originally intended to remove the rebel groups, every member of Darfur’s civilian population has been exposed to the violence. Nearly 400,000 lives have already been claimed, through direct violence, disease, and starvation. Almost 2.3 million Darfuri’s have fled their homes now residing in internally displaced persons camps, and another 200,000 refugees in the neighboring Chad. All these people are entirely dependent on the United Nations and other humanitarian efforts for their livelihoods.

 The Darfuri’s remaining in their villages are under the constant threat of violence. The African Union is a peacekeeping force attempting to keep them safe, though under funded and shorthanded. With inadequate means to stop the violence, this civilian protection mandate has done little in stopping the violent advances towards the population.

 *The above photo of Sudanese refugees was taken by Thomas Coex