Map of Western Bahr el Ghazal (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
By Claudio Gramizzi and Jérôme Tubiana, 11 July 2012
Amid claims of declining violence and wider regional transformations, the Darfur conflict has all but vanished from the international agenda since 2010. Virtually unnoticed by the international community, the conflict has moved into a new phase, in which the Government of Sudan has shifted away from using Arab proxy militias only to rely on newly formed (and newly armed) non-Arab proxies.
‘Forgotten Darfur‘ documents how this development has fundamentally changed the ethnic map of eastern Darfur, drawing on previously latent tensions between non-Arab groups over land, ethnicity, and local political dominance–and generating some of the most significant ethnically directed violence since the start of the conflict in 2003.
The ‘new’ war in eastern Darfur, which erupted in late 2010 and early 2011, has pitted non-Arab groups against other non-Arabs; specifically, government-backed militias drawn from small, previously marginalized non-Arab groups–including the Bergid, Berti, and Tunjur–deployed against Zaghawa rebel groups and communities.
‘Forgotten Darfur’ also reports how patterns of arms supplies to Sudanese government forces and proxy militias in Darfur have been almost entirely unimpeded by the international community, including the ineffectual UN arms embargo on Darfur. The Sudan Air Force has continued to move weapons into Darfur with complete impunity; it supported ground attacks with aerial bombardment in all of Darfur’s states during 2011 and in West and North Darfur during 2012, despite the UN Security Council’s prohibition on such offensive aerial operations since 2005.
The report also documents how transformations, regime change, and realignments in Chad, Libya, and South Sudan have not fully removed either the mechanisms of the motives for cross-border flows of arms, personnel, or political support to Darfur’s armed actors. In particular, ‘Forgotten Darfur’ explores relations between rebels and communities in western South Sudan and South Kordofan, and their potential to draw the Darfur conflict into much larger North-South confrontations. Increased linkages between Darfur’s rebel groups and the SPLM-N in South Kordofan, and the overlooked potential for conflict on the Darfur-Bahr al Ghazal border, are also highlighted.
Oil and Gas Concessions in Sudan and South Sudan – 2004 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
WASHINGTON – The United States called Monday on Sudan to agree to an emergency aid plan in its southern war zone as officials voiced growing alarm over imminent food shortages and a rising flow of refugees.
The United Nations, Arab League and African Union have proposed to Sudan a mission to deliver aid to its states of South Kordofan and Blue Nile, where fighting broke out last year despite the independence of nearby South Sudan.
“We’ve pressed very, very hard for that,” Princeton Lyman, the US special envoy for Sudan and South Sudan, said of the aid plan.
“There are ways to get food in — other ways — but they are not sufficient to the scope of the problem,” he told reporters on a conference call. “We think it’s vital and we think it’s a very high priority.”
The conflict made international headlines last month when actor George Clooney was arrested outside Sudan’s embassy in Washington as he demanded an end to the offensive. The US Senate last week passed a resolution calling on Sudan to allow immediate humanitarian access to the restive states.
Christa Capozzola, a senior official at the US Agency for International Development, said Monday that the situation was “very serious” with 200,000 to 250,000 people close to running short of food in South Kordofan and similar shortages expected by August in Blue Nile.
Some 140,000 refugees have fled the two states, mostly to South Sudan which is putting a major burden on the young and impoverished nation, said Catherine Wiesner, a State Department official.
Some 4.7 million people in South Sudan are already facing hunger this year of which at least one million are projected to be “severely food insecure,” Wiesner told the conference call.
“Humanitarian conditions are understood to be deteriorating in both conflict zones and so additional arrivals are expected in the coming months,” she said.
“With these numbers, obviously the (humanitarian) agencies remain in a race against time,” she said.
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