Genocide is an enormous word for a 12-year-old. Adam Erenga, one of more than a million new refugees in Sudan’s western Darfur regions, does not understand the term ethnic cleansing and knows nothing of the accusations of government-militia collusion.
What he knows about is Arab “Janjaweed” men on horses, and his entire family shot dead in his burning house. “I was coming home from school, I saw the village burning and the Janjaweed surrounding it,” he says. “They killed my whole family. Lots of girls were captured. I haven’t seen anyone since.”
Adam is the only known survivor of Dilinges, a village of about 300 in western Darfur. His cloths frayed and shredded, Adam wears a shirt that may have once been called blue. It is the only relic he has from his prior life.
Like many orphaned refugees, Adam was eventually found by the rebels fighting the Janjaweed and government. He is now friends with two other boys who suffered similar fates. Tahir Arga (13) and Moham-med Ahad Adem (14) were in school when government planes fire-bombed their villages. Janjaweed militias then came in, stealing cattle, taking a few girls captive, and killing those who refused to leave the village. The boys believe their families are alive in refugee camps, but haven’t been able to find them.
The stories of these children reflect those of more than one million displaced black Darfurians. Through testimony to the Mail & Guardian of dozens of refugees in Darfur, and the reports of various international aid and human rights organisations, there is ample evidence of an organised campaign by Janjaweed militias — made up of Arab nomadic shepherds — in collusion with the Sudanese government and its troops to rid the country’s westernmost Darfur regions of its 80 black African tribes.
Sudan is run by a powerful class of Arab plantation owners, almost entirely from two tribes in the north-east. Residents throughout Darfur, including many local Arabs, say the government is attempting to divide the country along religious and racial lines so as to maintain power.
Almost everyone in Darfur is Muslim. During the 21-year-long war in the south, Darfurian Africans were encouraged by the government to join their fellow Muslims and fight the Christian south.
The Sudan People’s Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) launched a rebellion 15 months ago, bemoaning the lack of investment by the government in Dafur, a region that has a negligible amount of water, electricity and industry.
The government responded in force, and fought the rebels with the help of the Janjaweed. “It’s normal for government to kill us rebels, but we didn’t expect them to kill and bomb civilians,” said Mohammed Basher, political leader of the JEM. “The government and Janjaweed want to kill all the black people in Sudan.”
The Sudanese government, for its part, says there are many Darfurians affected by the resource crises who have not taken up arms against the state, and denies that it is encouraging ethnic cleansing.
But to suppress the rebellion, the government, it is alleged, provides the Janjaweed with money, horses and cars, and frequently coordinates air support, bombing villages before Janjaweed attacks.
At least 10 000 people have been killed, but no agency has enough access to count. Africans from the region are fleeing to Chad, to refugee camps, or to the main Darfur cities.
“Try to find one Arab refugee in West Sudan or Eastern Chad — you will fail,” says Mohammed Basher, “What is happening here is genocide against the Africans of Sudan.”
Human rights and aid organisations agree. “The vicious war in Darfur has led to violations on a scale comparable in character with Rwanda in 1994,” says Mukesh Kapila, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Sudan. “All the warning signs are there.”
The Arab tribes are nomadic herders, the black African tribes primarily farmers. During the rainy season, Arabs in the south of Darfur come north to escape the mosquitoes, while the drought in the north pushes northern Arabs towards the south.Â
In the past, tribal leaders would negotiate the routes and timing of these seasonal migrations. But the desert is spreading. The Saharan expansion is forcing the Arabs out of the north, and the farms in the south have become their flocks’ grazing land, enraging the farmers.
Ethnic conflict is said to be encouraged by the government, which gave the Janjaweed tacit support. Darfurians from many tribes then launched a revolt. Within a year, the rebels have taken the majority of rural Darfur. About 20 000-strong, the number of rebels has doubled since the refugee crisis began and they now have more volunteers than they have weapons or food.
Last month the Sudanese government and rebels signed a 45-day ceasefire. Sudan agreed to disarm militias and non-regular forces that target the civilian population or hinder the delivery of relief.
While the ceasefire has slowed direct fighting between the various forces, without international monitors violence against the civilian population continues.
But Darfur is completely closed off. “When an Arab dies in Ramallah everyone hears about it. There are Arabs killing people here daily and no one knows,” says Abu Bakkir Hamed, a rebel coordinator. After months of negotiation the African Union has still to put an international monitoring team on the ground.
Sudan President Ahmed Omer Hassan Al Bashir says he is facilitating the distribution of humanitarian relief in Darfur. But over the past year most aid workers have been denied entry and flights bringing supplies are severely restricted. Aid agencies warn that 350 000 could die in Darfur in the next year unless the Sudanese government grants full access to humanitarian workers.