War in Darfur
Sudan - 2004

The peace deal signed in 2003 in Kenya between the warring factions in Sudan’s twenty-year civil war did not include the present conflict in the Darfur region, described by the UN as the world’s worst humanitarian disaster.

Sudan gained independence from Britain in 1956, unleashing warring factions, the most notable of which was the Sudanese People's Liberation Army, formed in 1983 by John Garang, that began fighting the Arab Muslim government in Khartoum. Garang's goal was to seek greater autonomy for the mainly Christian animist South. The conflict claimed more than two million lives and destabilized the entire north-eastern region of Africa.

In the meantime, since 2003, the situation remains desperate in western Darfur. Sudan's government and the pro-government Arab militia known as Janjaweed are accused of war crimes against the region's black African population, although the UN has stopped short of terming it a genocide.

At least 180,000 have died in the western region of Darfur and more than two million people have been forced from their homes.