Aitana Vargas

Today I would like draw attention to Darfur, a sub-Saharan region in western Sudan currently suffering the consequences of one of the world’s worst man-caused catastrophes. Not only do people die there because of an on-going ethnic conflict - that according to UN estimates has killed more than 200,000 people and made more than 2.5 million others flee their homes in the past four years - but also because of the region’s environment and geography.

The outset of the conflict dates back to February 2003 after a rebel group launched attacks against government targets arguing that the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum had neglected the region and oppressed black Africans in favor of Arabs.

This land has witnessed decades of confrontation between nomads (mostly Arabs) and settled farmers (both Arabs and Africans) who have fought for an impoverished region lacking water, food and decent shelter. The two main rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement, mostly recruit their men from the Fur, Zaghawa and Massaleit ethnic groups. The other side of the conflict is mainly staged by the Janjaweed Militias – presumably backed by Sudan’s government – who have been allegedly accused of committing widespread atrocities including “ethnic cleansing” of black Africans. The Sudanese government, led by President Omar al-Bashir, has denied being in control of the Janjaweed despite having admitted that it mobilized defensive militias immediately after rebel attacks took place.

Darfur’s refugees have reported that the Janjaweed Militias have kidnapped and sexually abused women, butchered men and burned villages to the ground. Many Darfurians have fled their villages seeking safe haven in camps at larger towns in Darfur. But competition for resources is fierce, so some leave the camps looking for water or food, and that’s when the Janjaweed militia-men, who patrol outside the camps, kill the men and abduct the women. Some Darfurians have crossed the border and settled in next door neighbor Chad but face similar problems as they have landed in an area so close to the border that are yet exposed to Sudan’s militias.

Darfur has become center stage for a major humanitarian crisis as the rest of the world watches the drama unfold. The refugee camps are places where people stop being people, where children do not even have to worry about enjoying their rights because they never had them to begin with. They’re no longer children, instead they are refugees. Aid workers and agencies can only provide rough estimates of how many people have been killed and are caught up in war because gaining access to conflict areas is quite a difficult task. And this is reflected on the reports, which cannot differentiate between Darfurians who have died from starvation, disease or as victims of violence.

Human rights groups and some countries like the US have described the situation as “genocide”, while the UN has declined to label it as such in light of on-site investigations reporting that the bloodshed in Darfur is only the result of war crimes. Long have the US and the UK threatened to impose sanctions on Sudan if it does not disband the Janjaweed and allow for a larger UN peacekeeping force in the region. But despite such threats and international pressure, the Sudanese government’s promise of disarming the Janjaweed has not materialized. Moreover, Sudan’s allies China and Russia, as permanent Security Council members, have used their veto power to block UN Security Council resolutions. Since US efforts have failed to persuade all UN permanent members to agree to impose sanctions on the African country, the US announced earlier this year sanctions on Sudan. These have targeted 30 companies - mostly in the oil industry - and banned three individuals from trading with the US.

But many are the challenges facing Darfurians. Most sub-Saharan areas are exposed to a harsh environment that poses serious dangers to the region’s limited natural resources and people’s lives. As the conflict intensifies, conditions worsen: an increasing number of refugees are confined to live in a land that shrinks everyday. Temperatures are so high that there’s very little arable land and soon do those few areas become a reason for further conflict. With population overgrowth, less land to cultivate, lower production of food crops, a shortage of medicines and drought, it is hard to imagine that Darfurians might look at their future optimistically. Some experts argue that climate change will exacerbate living conditions in the region contributing to an increase in hostilities and the worsening of on-going fights for scarce resources. Some say that global warming is a present reality for Africans. It is not hard to guess that the Darfur crisis has also been linked to climate change. Is global warming a factor being overlooked and that might have triggered the conflict in the first place? There are those who believe that the crisis is an early sign of what we’re in for unless the world’s powers urgently take action to prevent a further increase in temperatures and reduce carbon emissions. It seems that death, whether as a result of violence, starvation or disease, has taken its root in Darfur and will continue advancing steadily across the sub-Saharan region.

Putting an end to Darfur’s struggle will heavily depend on whether the world’s developed nations are capable of joining efforts to make all sides commit to discontinuing hostilities and allow for the establishment of a peacekeeping force large enough to be able to contain the violence. Also limited by its geography, sub-Saharan Africa needs to devise sensible water management policies and revise existing land-use strategies to optimize its natural resources. With global warming decreasing access to such scarce resources, Africa will need to find in the world’s powers an ally committed to reducing carbon emissions. And as much a tragedy Darfur’s crisis is, it might serve as an example of the key measures governments must implement in order to tackle this and prevent similar conflicts from breaking out elsewhere. Ultimately, the disaster is such that it requires to be addressed from a holistic standpoint, with governments acting jointly at social, political, financial and environmental levels.

I would like to invite you to reflect on the facts above because it is rather easy to forget the suffering of others when we have a place that we can call “home”.

The Stern Report on climate change at the BBC