Background Briefing

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Context

Since early 2003, the crisis in Sudan’s western Darfur region has become one of the world’s worst human rights crises.1  In coordination with ethnic militias known as the “Janjaweed,” the Sudanese government has systematically targeted civilians sharing the ethnicity of Darfur’s main rebel movements. Almost two million people have been forcibly displaced by the attacks and lost their property, livestock, and other assets. Tens of thousands of civilians have been killed, raped, or arbitrarily detained by the Sudanese government forces and their militias.

The African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) entered Darfur in July 2004 to monitor an African Union (A.U.)-brokered ceasefire agreement between the two rebel groups and the Sudanese government. In the face of continuing attacks on civilians, the African Union mission’s mandate expanded to limited civilian protection in October 2004 and in April 2005 the A.U. Peace and Security Council authorized an increase of personnel to 7,731.2

As of  March 2006, the 6,898-strong AMIS includes 4,760 protection forces (military), 1,385 unarmed civilian police, 715 unarmed military observers and additional personnel.  The force has succeeded in bringing limited stability to some areas where it is deployed, but it lacks sufficient numbers, equipment, and funding to tamp down the increasing violence against civilians in Darfur.

The majority of Darfur’s population continues to suffer from ongoing attacks by government and rebel forces and bandits, or indirectly from insecurity and the collapse of the local economy.  A resurgence of fighting since late 2005, continuing attacks on civilians and the spillover of fighting into neighboring Chad highlight the gap between AMIS’ capacity to protect civilians and the massive protection needs on the ground. 

The U.N. Secretary-General said in his April 2006 report to the Security Council on Darfur that the recent escalation of fighting between the parties, together with deliberate attacks on towns, villages, and displaced persons’ settlements and acts of banditry, has forced thousands more civilians to flee their homes and exposed them to a wide range of abuses.3

A proposal to replace or “blue hat” AMIS with a U.N. force gathered momentum in January 2006 as AMIS funding problems increased. The proposal for a U.N. force has met stiff resistance from the Sudanese government.  It consistently tries to prevent any initiatives that could protect civilians in Darfur. It has refused to investigate or prosecute war crimes, including murders and rapes, by government and military personnel and by its Janjaweed militias.  

The African Union mediators of Darfur peace talks between the Sudanese government and the Darfur rebels in Abuja, Nigeria, have imposed a deadline on the parties to sign a peace agreement and an “enhanced” ceasefire agreement by April 30.  A peace agreement or a new ceasefire agreement will not guarantee an end to attacks on civilians, however. The April 2004 ceasefire agreement has scarcely been respected: armed groups have multiplied, arms and ammunition are readily available, ethnic polarization is greatly increased and those engaged in banditry know they enjoy total immunity from prosecution by the Sudanese authorities as long as they participate in the Sudan government’s counterinsurgency campaign. Finally, as discussed below, the African Union force has lost credibility as a deterrent to attacks on civilians and humanitarian convoys, and as a result hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons have been cut off from the humanitarian assistance they need.

The recent events in Chad, where Khartoum-backed Chadian rebels based in Darfur almost captured the Chadian capital, N’Djamena, on April 13, provide new and added urgency to the need to protect civilians in the region. In addition to a serious risk of conflict engulfing Chad, the safety of some 208,000 Sudanese refugees in eastern Chad is also threatened. 



[1] See “Darfur in Flames: Atrocities in Western Sudan,” A Human Rights Watch Report, vol. 16, no. 5(A), April 2004, [online] http://hrw.org/reports/2004/sudan0404; “Darfur Destroyed: Ethnic Cleansing by Government and Militia Forces in Western Sudan,” A Human Rights Watch Report, vol. 16, no. 6(A), May 2004, [online] http://hrw.org/reports/2004/sudan0504; “Darfur Documents Confirm Government Policy of Militia  Support,” A Human Rights Watch Briefing Paper, July 19, 2004, [online] http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/07/19/darfur9096.htm; “Empty Promises? Continuing Abuses in Darfur, Sudan,” A Human Rights Watch Briefing Paper, August 11, 2004, [online] http://hrw.org/backgrounder/africa/sudan/2004; “If We Return We Will Be Killed,” A Human Rights Watch Briefing Paper, November 15, 2004, [online] http://hrw.org/backgrounder/africa/darfur1104; “Targeting the Fur: Mass Killings in Darfur,” A Human Rights Watch Briefing Paper, January 24, 2005; “Sexual Violence and its Consequences Among Displaced Persons in  Darfur and Chad,” A Human Rights Watch Briefing Paper, April 12, 2005, [online] http://hrw.org/backgrounder/africa/darfur0505; “Entrenching Impunity: Government Responsibility for International Crimes in Darfur,” A Human Rights Watch Report, vol. 17, no. 17(A), December 2005, [online] http://hrw.org/reports/2005/darfur1205; “Sudan : Imperatives for Immediate Change,” A Human Rights Watch Report, January 2006, vol. 18, no. 1(A), [online] http://hrw.org/reports/2006/sudan0106; and “Darfur Bleeds: Recent Cross-Border Violence in Chad,” A Human Rights Watch Briefing Paper, no. 2, February 2006, [online] http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/africa/chad0206/.

[2] African Union Peace and Security Council, "Communiqué," paragraph 6, October 20, 2004, [online] http://www.genocideinterventionfund.org/educate/reports/au/17comm.pdf.  The authorized numbers of personnel were increased to 7,731 in April 2005 as of September 2005, although those numbers have not yet been reached as of the writing of this report. For instance, African Union Peace and Security Council, "Communiqué," April 25, 2005, [online] http://news9.asmarino.com/content/view/58/88/.

[3] He added, “In particular, I am alarmed by the reports of widespread human rights violations committed in Gereida, Mershing and Shearia in Southern Darfur, among other locations, which have led to the displacement of tens of thousands of people United Nations Security Council.” Monthly report of the Secretary-General on Darfur," S/2006/218, April 5, 2006, [online] http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N06/294/93/PDF/N0629493.pdf?OpenElement.


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