by Jennie Jones

Created on: September 17, 2007

In 2004 the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum declared a genocide emergency for Darfur, Sudan. To date about 2,500,000 civilians have been driven from their homes, more than 300,000 people killed, and more than 1,600 villages destroyed by Sudanese government soldiers and government-backed militias. The crisis continues as thousands more die each month from the effects of inadequate food, water, health care, and shelter in a harsh desert environment.

The Holocaust took place across the entire European continent, and for all of Europe's Jews, as well as other victims of Nazism, geography played a major role in determining their fate. The Museum of the Holocaust site is showing historic content from its collections, powerfully illustrating the enormous scope and impact of the Holocaust.

Since early 2003, Sudanese government soldiers and their proxy ethnic militia, known as the Janjaweed, have fought rebel groups in the western region of Darfur. The government and Janjaweed strategy has been to carry out systematic assaults against civilians from the same ethnic groups as the rebels: the Fur, Zaghawa, and Masaalit. Rebel forces are responsible for some attacks against civilians, but overwhelmingly the Sudanese government and Janjaweed have perpetrated the violence.

Hundreds of thousands of civilians have died from violence, disease, and starvation, and thousands of women have been raped. About 2,500,000 civilians have been driven from their homes, their villages torched and property stolen. Thousands of villages have been systematically destroyed. More than 200,000 Sudanese have escaped to the neighboring country of Chad, but most are trapped inside Darfur. Thousands more die each month from the effects of inadequate food, water, health care, and shelter in a harsh desert environment.

Darfur is home to over 30 ethnic groups, all African and all Muslim. The Janjaweed militas recruited, armed, trained, and supported by the Sudanese government are drawn from several small nomadic groups who claim an Arab identity. They have used racial slurs while attacking and raping the targeted groups, who are considered non-Arab. The ethnic and perceived racial basis of the violence has been well documented by the U.S. Department of State, the United Nations, independent human rights organizations, and international journalists.

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