_______ST.

THOMAS POST_______

The first genocide on the 21st century, leaving over 800,000 dead.

In 2003 the Darfur conflict started in Western Sudan, located in Eastern Africa. For a couple
years the conflict was unrecognised and unnoticed. But today we’ll give you, our readers, as
much information that we can. Although the conflict started almost 20 years ago, it is
ongoing. There have been up to 800,000 deaths reported, classifying it as an act of genocide.
It is a multi-layered issue with economic, political and most importantly, ethnic aspects. The
Darfur genocide is also known as the first genocide of the the 21st century.

The initial conflict turned genocide is the

mass morder and rape of Darfuri men,
women, and children, who are mostly
black African Muslims These horrific
acts are being carried out by the
Janjaweed. A militia group that operates
in western Sudan. They mainly comprise
people from Sundanese Arab tribes. One
of the main causes for conflict is the
Darfuris protesting the government
because they believed that it favored its
Arab population and discarded its
non-Arab people. The government responded by arming Arab militias to go to Darfur and
fight against the rebels. These militias became known as the Janjaweed, which roughly
translates to “mounted gunman”.

This is an extremely
severe issue. There have
been a lot of consequences
with the genocide. Over
800,00 people have died
and according to Eric
Reeves, the North
Carolina state senator,
over one million children
have been raped,
murdered, displaced,
traumatized, or endured
the loss of parents and
families. It was also the cause for the displacement of approximately 4 million people. The
conflict has gotten so bad that buildings were destroyed, villages have been burned to the
ground and the economic growth of the country has been stunted.

There have been many

responses by the international
community. In 2009, the
international criminal court
(ICC) issued an arrest for the
president of Sudan, Omar
al-Bashir for being responsible
for the genocide. And in 2010
they issued another arrest for
the same reason but neither of
them worked. Later, the
United Nations (UN) got involved in the name of “humanitarian intervention” to help resolve
this issue. By doing this, they got the United Nations African Union movement (UNAMID)
to help create peace in the region. Other than that, they have only been able to set up refugee
camps. Recently, as the conflict is becoming less intense since the change of presidency, the
UN has started pulling out their people that were previously in the country.
One of the main limits that the UN had to respect was that they couldn't do anything using
force. If they did, it would only cause more harm to the population of Darfur. The UN was
also never able to arrest Omar al-Bashir because they had no concrete proof that he was a
factor in the genocide. Although he is still to this day under investigation for causing a
genocide.

This event is an international tragedy that we could only hope will never happen again. It is a
very complex issue with economic, political and most importantly, ethnic aspects. This event
will forever be known as the first genocide in the 21st century. We believe that it is very
important to everyone reading this that we try to help. Try to help by spreading the word and
spreading awareness. There are still many people that are oblivious to this whole situation,
but hopefully if enough awareness is spread, maybe the people in Darfur will get more help.