by Elisabeth Mcgrath

Created on: February 02, 2008   Last Updated: May 06, 2010

More than 30 groups are comprised in the demographics of Darfur's ethnic divisions. Whatever their tribal backgrounds, perpetrators and victims were all Muslim.

The Onset.

Beginning early in 2003, the Sudanese military together with it's proxy militia, the Janjaweed, had slaughtered rebel groups in the Western region of Darfur and initially targeted the rebels by ethnic criteria. The Janjaweed warriors were recruited, trained, armed and supported by the Sudanese government. Its members were selected from several different ethnic groups but all called themselves Arabs. Military action against their victims were justified by racial and ethnic demonisations.

A Life Behind Every Statistic.

Civilian dead numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Nearly 3 million people had been driven from their homes with their villages destroyed. The sheer numbers of displaced persons led to the inevitable deaths of thousands through hunger and disease. And just like every historical episode of genocide or ethnic cleansing produces a new aspect of man's inhumanity to man, the world saw the outrageous act of rape included as legitimate military action in Darfur.

Government Action.

Once the Sudanese government could no longer blame or hide behind the Janjaweed for it's complicity, condonation and participation in these atrocities, it began to openly fuel ethnic conflicts. Military aircraft began bombing civilian populations. The Sudanese military could no longer claim to be fighting rebels when they were conducting wholesale murder and rape against citizens. When entire communities and villages were deliberately targeted and destroyed, the escape clause of "collateral damage" became irrelevant.

The Sudanese government's blockades to international humanitarian aid organizations indicated that the government wanted no outside witnesses to their activities. When offers for UN and/or local military assistance were summarily rejected, the intentions of the Sudanese government became questionable.

International Responses.

On 24 June 2004 the US Holocaust Museum closed its doors as a plea to bring attention to the horrors of Darfur. In it's statement this institution declared a Genocide Emergency for Darfur. In the same month, the United States presented its determination that "Genocide is being committed in Darfur."

In January 2005, the United Nations Commission of Inquiry into Crimes Against Humanity concluded that "war crimes have been committed in Darfur and may be no less serious and

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