It’s not easy being a Black African in Darfur these days. They are being ethnically “cleansed”, and no one knows how to stop it. Humanitarian groups are frantically trying to help survivors and desperately calling for military aid. They seem to be screaming their message to a deaf world; three years of genocide have already gone by. The UN has been paralyzed, and the Sudanese government is suspiciously reluctant to stop the Janjaweed (waring rebels). Currently, these rebels are free to storm into villages atop horses and camels with their machine guns and create hell on earth. Their tactics include not only slaughtering masses of people, but also burning down entire villages, and systematically raping women and young girls.

Though the UN has set an April 30th deadline for peace negations, little faith rests in their ability to make a lasting difference. UN deadlines and agreements have come and gone before, but the situation is the same, if not escalating.

How did this happen?

Sudan has been troubled from the start. The East African nation is populated with Muslims, Christians, animists, and both Arabs and Africans. The groups have always been fighting to protect their conflicting ways of life. In 1983, the mostly Arab government tried to instate Shari’ a, Islamic law, to the protests of many Christians and animists.

The current situation began in 2003. Amidst rumors that the Sudanese government had been oppressing Black Africans in favor of Arabs, rebel groups, including the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA), began attacking the government. The government took no official action. However, another rebel group, the Arab Janjaweed, began their aggressive attacks on Africans with renewed vigor, sapping the SLA of possible recruits and effectively weakening them. The Janjaweed conveniently grew stronger during this time, equipped with expensive arms and well fed animals.

The Janjaweed have embarked on a terrifyingly successful ethnic cleansing campaign. Since 2003, they have displaced 2 million people, and an estimated 200,000 have died, both directly and due to effects of displacement. Many refugees are running to border states, and countries like Chad, already impoverished, have hundreds of thousands of refugees living (and dying) on their borders.

The displacement has caused a massive humanitarian crisis. All of these newly homeless (and hopeless) are starving, sick, and desperately poor. They have lost their lives and their livelihoods, and they live in constant fear of the ever present Janjaweed. Their refugee camps are not safe, their government is not responding, and the world shakes its head in pity, and then returns to safety and puts the ugliness of Darfur out of its mind.

This is a crisis. As we watch, thousands are dying and the map of terror is growing. The entire area is at risk of complete destabilization. The situation will not resolve itself.

The African Union has 7,000 troops on the ground, but it’s not nearly enough. The UN Security Council must decide when and how to deploy troops and countries must decide whether or not they will be sending soldiers. Every minute that ticks by while these decisions are being made costs precious lives.

Originally published by InternationalistMag.com on April 28, 2006