The Background
With millions displaced, hundreds of thousands dead and countless women raped, the crisis in the Darfur region of western Sudan is recognised as the world's greatest humanitarian disaster. It is synonymous with atrocities, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, which many people believe amount to genocide.

Over half of Darfurs six million people are black Africans; settled tribes who work the land. The rest are from ethnically Arab tribes, and are mostly herders. For centuries, the groups intermarried, shared the same religion - Islam - and often it was hard to tell them apart. However, long-term neglect of Darfur, global warming, civil war, the flow of arms from Libya, and proxy wars with Chad have left a devastating legacy on the always fragile relationship between Arab and African compatriots. Sudan's authorities - mainly Arabs from north Sudan - turned a blind eye as discrimination and attacks on Africans increased, and from the late 1990s, the Sudanese Government supported Arab militia attacks. In 2003 Darfuri rebels took up arms against the Government. Khartoums response was a brutal campaign targeting the entire black African population of Darfur. Regular troops and army gunships supported Arab militias, nicknamed 'Janjaweed' (meaning devils on horseback), who swept through villages killing, raping, looting and burning.

Armed conflict continues today. Civilians desperately seek international protection whilst diplomats discuss protocol and negotiators talk up progress from failed peace talks.

With thanks to the Aegis Trust and Peter Moszynski