Author: Thomas Shacklock, MSc
September 4, 2024
Since the war in Sudan unfolded in April 2023, the western region of Darfur has seen a renewal of the atrocities, “ethnic cleansing,” and genocide that devastated the region in the 2000s. The current war started as a power struggle between the leader of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the leader of a paramilitary force called the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (“Hemedti”). Almost immediately, the RSF began perpetrating genocidal violence in Darfur, which had been the RSF’s original goal in the 2000s when it was known as the “Janjaweed” militia.
The RSF comprises members of Arab-identifying Sudanese nomadic communities. Its ongoing atrocities have targeted the Masalit and other non-Arab communities including the Fur and Zaghawa. In the 2000s, the Janjaweed also targeted these communities, resulting in 300,000 deaths owing to direct killings, starvation, and disease. This genocide started in 2003 under former dictator Omar al-Bashir after two non-Arab Darfuri rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) launched an anti-government insurgency in response to the government’s chronic marginalization of Darfur and attacks by the Janjaweed. The military reacted by systematically attacking and displacing civilians, destroying villages and food sources, and using sexual violence with the help of the Janjaweed.
The violence never ended after the 2000s as lower-level conflicts continued up until the renewal of large-scale atrocities in April 2023. The Masalit and other non-Arab communities have already faced over a year of “ethnic cleansing” in the city of El Geneina. There is now a threat of a large-scale massacre in the city of El Fasher, where half a million displaced civilians have sought refuge. El Fasher is the last city in Darfur to be held by the SAF and is now besieged by the RSF. The violence has been compounded by its serious humanitarian ramifications including the world’s worst displacement crisis and famine. The violence has also been characterized by complex dynamics both at the national and international levels. Armed actors have committed abuses on all sides, though the RSF’s genocidal attacks are the most extreme. Additionally, while the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has supported the RSF, Egypt has reportedly backed the SAF, and Saudi Arabia has intervened as a mediator while also allegedly supporting the SAF.
Complex conflicts and identity constructions
It is not only the complexities of intercommunity victimization that have been overlooked in international media reporting on Darfur. The complex experiences of different nomadic communities have also been simplified. The genocidal violence perpetrated by the Janjaweed and RSF is linked to the broader problem of Arab supremacy in Sudan, which has historically privileged Arab-identifying communities over marginalized Black Sudanese and caused several conflicts since the period of decolonization from joint British and Egyptian rule in the 1950s. In both the large-scale genocide of the 2000s and the ongoing genocide in Darfur, the Janjaweed and RSF have employed dehumanizing language depicting Black Sudanese as racially inferior and as groups that do not belong in their homelands. However, while Arab supremacy is a major factor in Sudan’s conflicts, the “Arab” and nomadic identity constructions are often oversimplified.
Many nomadic groups in Darfur are Arab-identifying. However, these two identity categories are not synonymous. Darfur is a vast region that is home to an estimate of around 80 ethno-linguistic communities who depend on sedentary agriculturist or nomadic livelihoods. Darfur is a predominantly Muslim region, and all of its communities are Black and of mixed ancestry, though many identify as Arab based on their heritage. Its nomadic communities are diverse and have varied lineages, though they can be separated into two overarching groups. In northern Darfur, which has a dry environment, nomadic pastoralist communities are collectively known as the Abbala and primarily rely on camel-based pastoralism. In southern Darfur, which is rather semi-arid, nomadic communities are collectively known as the Baggara and generally rely on cattle-based pastoralism. During dry seasons, Abbala groups have historically migrated to the south to search for water and pasture. In the past, relations between these communities were largely symbiotic.
From the 1980s, these different identity constructions started becoming more simplified and polarized. This was partly due to regional dimensions, including proxy and direct conflicts between Libya and Chad, and various other exacerbating factors. It was also during this period in the 1980s that the militias that became known as the “Janjaweed” emerged. The people of Darfur were experiencing immense hardship due to drought, desertification, famine, and war between the northern and southern parts of Sudan. These conditions contributed to a collapse of law and order and the consequent formation of multiple Arab and non-Arab self-defense armed groups that competed for land, animals, and other basic resources. The Janjaweed included Arab militias from non-Sudanese backgrounds, particularly Chad. However, most of Janjaweed’s militias were Abbala Arab camel herders from northern Darfur who felt marginalized as they were deprived of land rights for various reasons, including historical reasons and their nomadic way of life, though this inequality has not always fallen along the divide between Arabs and non-Arabs.
Neighboring Chad and Libya were experiencing a war until the late 1980s, while Libya had a considerable military presence in Darfur. Libyan dictator Colonel Gaddafi aspired to create an Arab “belt” or “homeland” across the Sahara and the Sahel region in North Africa and sent military operations into Chad, and Libyan-backed Chadian rebels used Darfur as a base. At a time of drought and famine that devastated all of Darfur, particularly its Abbala nomadic communities, some Abbala men became vulnerable to being recruited by Gaddafi, who contributed to the entrenchment and politicization of the racialized, binary Arab-African labels among Darfuri communities. The Janjaweed was formed by reportedly Libyan-trained militias who espoused Arab supremacist beliefs. Although Libya’s presence in Darfur had declined by the 1990s, the Janjaweed’s violence continued into the 2000s, when Darfur’s large-scale genocide unfolded.
Multilayered dynamics of victimization
There are also important complex differences between the main non-Arab groups targeted with genocide in Darfur. While the Fur and Masalit are primarily sedentary agriculturalist groups, the Zaghawa are a semi-nomadic cattle-herding and camel-herding minority from northern Darfur and eastern Chad. In past decades, many Zaghawa have migrated south, where they have settled on lands belonging to chiefs from other communities including the Fur, Masalit, and Arab groups such as the Rizeigat Baggara. In the 2000s, as the Zaghawa became more established, Arab and non-Arab communities alike feared that the Zaghawa would obtain traditional chiefdoms and territories, which non-Arabs in northern Darfur also feared about Abbala Arabs. They also feared the Zaghawa would seize power in Khartoum and create a large “Dar Zaghawa” from Lake Chad to the River Nile. The Sudanese government that sided with the Janjaweed also employed anti-Zaghawa rhetoric and propaganda.
The asymmetric dynamics of the genocide in the 2000s also affected nomadic communities in specific ways. The international community generally overlooked the effect of the resulting humanitarian catastrophe on thousands of nomadic Sudanese Arabs in northern Darfur, including the Rizeigat. These communities were often conflated with the Janjaweed by other Darfuri civilians, and rebels from the SLM/A would even attack them on this basis. One semi-nomadic Rizeigat clan became entirely nomadic in 2003 after SLM/A rebels destroyed their village. These experiences underscore the extent to which the genocide and atrocities have devastated many communities in the region.
The Zaghawa have also been targeted for specific reasons in the current genocide. In November 2023, SLM/A and JEM, whose leaders are both Zaghawa, allied with the Sudanese army. In April 2024, during a fight between the RSF and SAF-allied groups in the city of Mellit, the RSF disproportionately targeted the Zaghawa with violence. Some observers fear that Sudan’s civil war could spill over beyond Sudan’s borders by bringing in Chadian fighters, given the Zaghawa community’s links with Chad. The Zaghawa constitute one of the main communities in El Fasher. If the RSF takes control of El Fasher, civilians perceived to be aligned with the military, particularly the Zaghawa, risk facing reprisal attacks. The Sudanese army and its allied rebels, for their part, have also spread anti-Arab online hate speech that puts innocent Arabs at risk, and Zaghawa militias have perpetrated attacks against Arab civilians. These incidents underscore the complex but asymmetric dynamics victimizing many communities during this crisis.
The experiences of nomadic groups in Darfur underscore the complexity of victimhood and the causes of violence in this context. The complex structural factors and dynamics of violence in Darfur, including marginalization and the interaction between political and environmental factors, indicate the structural changes needed to address this deep crisis. Grasping these structural factors can also help people better understand what has driven certain Sudanese Arabs to join the Janjaweed, without reinforcing harmful tropes about the “nomad savage” that conflate nomadism with atrocities. In this regard, it is critical to not only distinguish the experiences and actions of armed actors from those of civilians across different communities but also promote narratives and conflict solutions that encourage co-existence between nomadic and sedentary communities.
Glossary
Abbala Arabs: Nomadic Arab communities from the dry north of Darfur who primarily rely on camel-based pastoralism. [Source: Alex De Waal]
Baggara Arabs: Nomadic Arab communities from the semi-arid south of Darfur who primarily rely on cattle-based pastoralism. [Source: Alex De Waal]
Belt: An area that is known for a particular characteristic. [Source (quoted): Cambridge Dictionary online]
Chiefdom: The territory or people over which a chief rules. [Source (quoted): Collins Online Dictionary].
Ethnic cleansing: The forced removal of an ethnic group from a territory [...] Unlike crimes against humanity, genocide, and war crimes, ethnic cleansing is not recognized as a standalone crime under international law. However, the practice of ethnic cleansing may constitute genocide, crimes against humanity, or war crimes. [Source (quoted): US Holocaust Memorial Museum]
Fur: A primarily sedentary agriculturalist group in Darfur. The name of the region “Darfur” means “home of the Fur.” [Source: Minority Rights Group International]
Genocide: An internationally recognized crime where acts are committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. [Source (quoted): US Holocaust Memorial Museum]
Herd/herding: If you herd animals, you make them move along as a group. [Source (quoted): Collins Online Dictionary]
Janjaweed: A Sudanese Arab-nomad militia that was a key perpetrator of the Darfur genocide in the 2000s. The name “Janjaweed” translates as “devils on horseback.” [Source: Holocaust Memorial Day Trust]
Justice and Equality Movement (JEM): A Darfuri rebel group that helped launch an insurgency against the Sudanese government in 2003, triggering the Darfur genocide of the 2000s. [Source: Alex De Waal]
Land rights: There are various specific terms and definitions used for this concept, but ‘land rights’ can generally be considered a subcategory of property rights concerning the right to land [Source: Lisa Murken and Christoph Gornott]. They can include the right to use or control the use of land and can concern the allocation of rights to land [Source: Food And Agriculture Organization].
Lineage: Someone's lineage is the series of families from which they are directly descended. [Source (quoted): Collins Online Dictionary]
Marginalization: The act of treating someone or something as if they are not important. [Source (quoted): Cambridge Dictionary online]
Masalit: A primarily sedentary agriculturalist group in Darfur. [Source: Cultural Survival]
Militia: An organization that operates like an army but whose members are not professional soldiers. [Source (quoted): Collins Online Dictionary]
NB: “Arab” is a complex identity construction in the context of Darfur and the rest of Sudan and does not necessarily indicate a direct Arab heritage, as explained further in the article. [Source: Alex De Waal]
Nomadic: Moving from one place to another rather than living in one place all of the time. [Source (quoted): Cambridge Dictionary online]
Paramilitary: A paramilitary group is organized like an army but is not official and often not legal (noun); connected with and helping the official armed forces (adjective). [Source (quoted): Cambridge Dictionary online]
Pastoralist: A person who raises livestock, esp. a nomadic herder. [Source (quoted): Collins Online Dictionary]
Proxy conflict: A conflict between third parties, through whom enemies attack each other. [Source (quoted): Collins Online Dictionary]
Racialize: To cause or believe race to be an important feature of a group of people, of society, or of a problem. [Source (quoted): Cambridge Dictionary online]
Rapid Support Forces (RSF): A primarily Sudanese Arab paramilitary force that evolved from the “Janjaweed” and the main perpetrator of genocide and ethnic cleansing against non-Arabs in Darfur. Its current leader is General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (“Hemedti”). [Source: Al Jazeera]
Sedentary: Not migratory; settled. [Source (quoted): Merriam-Webster Dictionary online]
Semi-nomadic: Definitions vary depending on the way of life or livelihoods of each community. Semi-nomadic people can generally be considered to move less often than nomadic people [Source: Survival International]. They can also be described as living a partly nomadic life [Source (quoted): Collins Online Dictionary].
Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A): A Darfuri rebel group that helped launch an insurgency against the Sudanese government in 2003, triggering the Darfur genocide of the 2000s. [Source: Alex De Waal]
Supremacist: An advocate or adherent of the supremacy of one group : a person who believes that one group of people as identified by their shared race, ethnicity, sex, gender, or religion is inherently superior to other groups and should have control over those other groups. [Source (quoted): Merriam-Webster Dictionary online]
Supremacy: Ultimate authority or power. [Source (quoted): Merriam-Webster Dictionary online]
Zaghawa: A semi-nomadic cattle-herding and camel-herding minority from Chad and Northern Darfur. [Source: Cultural Survival]
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