‘Garden of war’: horse killers returned to Darfur

Across the dry riverbeds, thousands fled Chad, fleeing war in Sudan and a name that evokes terror in many: Janjawed, “evil on horseback”.

“They came on horses,” cried Jamila Ibrahim, carrying her six-month-old baby in the Chadian border village of Koufron. “Some are dressed in khaki, with machine guns, shooting everywhere, everyone, and they killed my 14-year-old daughter.” His brother and his three children also died in the fight.

Ibrahim was among 85,000 people who fled El Jinina, the capital of West Darfur and the scene of some of the worst violence since fighting began in Sudan in mid-April.

Fighting broke out between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Force as fighters carrying looters on camels, horses and trucks looted the city. Ibrahim said, “Khartoum’s problems came to Darfur.”

The bloodshed marked the return of militias who wreaked havoc in Darfur, rekindling a two-decade-old conflict. According to the Sudanese doctors’ union, more than 380 civilians have been killed in Darfur in recent weeks.

The spark is the conflict in Khartoum that has pitted the army led by Sudan’s de facto president and army chief, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, against the paramilitary RSF of General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemeti. The vast and largely uninhabited Darfur region is familiar to both.

Burhan climbed through the ranks of the army while fighting rebels in Darfur, which rose against the Arab-dominated government of Omar al-Bashir in a brutal war that began in 2003 and has killed some 300,000 people. had lost his life.

Hemeti, originally from a Chadian-Arab clan in northern Darfur, was the commander of the Janjaweed Brigade fighting on Bashir’s side. The International Criminal Court later charged the former president with genocide and some Janjaweed commanders – though not Hemeti – with war crimes.

If the army is successful in pushing the RSF out of Khartoum, Hemeti and his men are expected to use Darfur as a place to regroup and re-arm. A senior humanitarian aid official in Chad said, “If Hemeti Khartoum wins, the RSF will seek to consolidate control over Darfur, bolstering Arab militias who are desert warriors who will not stop at anything.”

“If he loses Khartoum, he will come back to Darfur to set up his base. Both scenarios are dire for Darfur. , , Darfur will be a war garden for the powers of Khartoum.”

Despite repeated peace efforts, incidents of violence have continued in the region for years, with fighters raiding, burning and looting villages in a conflict that has killed Arabs – especially those rejigs who became part of Janjaweed militias. – fought against the Darfur tribes, which included the Masalit.

“The ongoing attacks include extrajudicial killings, beatings, sexual violence,” said Tigray Chagutah, Amnesty International’s head for East and Southern Africa. “Today, the citizens of Darfur are at the mercy of the same security forces who committed crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur.”

Nasr Eldin Adam, a pro-democracy activist in El Jinina, said he feared the situation would worsen if the RSF was driven out of Khartoum and regrouped in Darfur.

“He has community support in some areas. El Jinina is a strategic area for them if they want to get support or back-up from other countries. “It’s going to be a big problem for civilians in Darfur, here we know all too well what they can do – killing, looting.”

While global attention has focused on the fighting in Khartoum, the violence has exacerbated Darfur’s deep divisions, a situation that a Western diplomat in N’Djamena said had parallels with an outbreak of inter-ethnic bloodshed in 2003.

Human Rights Watch noted an increase in fighting between militia members from the ethnic Masalite and Arab communities in El Jinina in May. The United Nations has recently reported clashes in Zalingei in Central Darfur, Nyala in South Darfur and El Fasher in the north of the province, and said fighting in El Jinina had escalated into a “deadly ethnic conflict”.

Jerome Tubiana, a former member of the United Nations Panel of Experts on Sudan, said: “What is happening between the Arabs and Masalits in West Darfur is a continuation of the regular outbreaks of violence that preceded this latest conflict. The security vacuum itself could make things worse.

The RSF has said it now controls half of El Jinina and most of the major towns of Nyala and El Fasher. An RSF official claimed that the Sudanese military had handed over weapons to Masalit to fuel a “civil war”. “It’s not the RSF against the army, it’s tribes fighting amongst themselves, but the majority of RSF fighters are from Darfur,” he said.

Ali Mahamat Sebe, mayor of the Chadian border town of Adre, said he feared a wider conflict as cross-border ethnic loyalties could increasingly draw people from Chad and the Central African Republic into the war in Darfur.

After decades of bloodshed, there is little hope of respite for the people of Darfur. Medina Gamar fled Tandulti on the Sudanese border last week after the village came under attack, with armed men also killing those who had crossed into Chad.

“Janjaweed came unexpectedly and started shooting everyone,” she said, comparing her childhood trauma to when armed men shot her parents and her younger sister in 2003. “I’m tired of Darfur always being at war,” she said.

Across the dry riverbeds, thousands fled Chad, fleeing war in Sudan and a name that evokes terror in many: Janjawed, “evil on horseback”.

“They came on horses,” cried Jamila Ibrahim, carrying her six-month-old baby in the Chadian border village of Koufron. “Some are dressed in khaki, with machine guns, shooting everywhere, everyone, and they killed my 14-year-old daughter.” His brother and his three children also died in the fight.

Ibrahim was among 85,000 people who fled El Jinina, the capital of West Darfur and the scene of some of the worst violence since fighting began in Sudan in mid-April.

Fighting broke out between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Force as fighters carrying looters on camels, horses and trucks looted the city. Ibrahim said, “Khartoum’s problems came to Darfur.”

The bloodshed marked the return of militias who wreaked havoc in Darfur, rekindling a two-decade-old conflict. According to the Sudanese doctors’ union, more than 380 civilians have been killed in Darfur in recent weeks.

The spark is the conflict in Khartoum that has pitted the army led by Sudan’s de facto president and army chief, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, against the paramilitary RSF of General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemeti. The vast and largely uninhabited Darfur region is familiar to both.

Burhan climbed through the ranks of the army while fighting rebels in Darfur, which rose against the Arab-dominated government of Omar al-Bashir in a brutal war that began in 2003 and has killed some 300,000 people. had lost his life.

Hemeti, originally from a Chadian-Arab clan in northern Darfur, was the commander of the Janjaweed Brigade fighting on Bashir’s side. The International Criminal Court later charged the former president with genocide and some Janjaweed commanders – though not Hemeti – with war crimes.

If the army is successful in pushing the RSF out of Khartoum, Hemeti and his men are expected to use Darfur as a place to regroup and re-arm. A senior humanitarian aid official in Chad said, “If Hemeti Khartoum wins, the RSF will seek to consolidate control over Darfur, bolstering Arab militias who are desert warriors who will not stop at anything.”

“If he loses Khartoum, he will come back to Darfur to set up his base. Both scenarios are dire for Darfur. , , Darfur will be a war garden for the powers of Khartoum.”

Despite repeated peace efforts, incidents of violence have continued in the region for years, with fighters raiding, burning and looting villages in a conflict that has killed Arabs – especially those rejigs who became part of Janjaweed militias. – fought against the Darfur tribes, which included the Masalit.

“The ongoing attacks include extrajudicial killings, beatings, sexual violence,” said Tigray Chagutah, Amnesty International’s head for East and Southern Africa. “Today, the citizens of Darfur are at the mercy of the same security forces who committed crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur.”

Nasr Eldin Adam, a pro-democracy activist in El Jinina, said he feared the situation would worsen if the RSF was driven out of Khartoum and regrouped in Darfur.

“He has community support in some areas. El Jinina is a strategic area for them if they want to get support or back-up from other countries. “It’s going to be a big problem for civilians in Darfur, here we know all too well what they can do – killing, looting.”

While global attention has focused on the fighting in Khartoum, the violence has exacerbated Darfur’s deep divisions, a situation that a Western diplomat in N’Djamena said had parallels with an outbreak of inter-ethnic bloodshed in 2003.

Human Rights Watch noted an increase in fighting between militia members from the ethnic Masalite and Arab communities in El Jinina in May. The United Nations has recently reported clashes in Zalingei in Central Darfur, Nyala in South Darfur and El Fasher in the north of the province, and said fighting in El Jinina had escalated into a “deadly ethnic conflict”.

Jerome Tubiana, a former member of the United Nations Panel of Experts on Sudan, said: “What is happening between the Arabs and Masalits in West Darfur is a continuation of the regular outbreaks of violence that preceded this latest conflict. The security vacuum itself could make things worse.

The RSF has said it now controls half of El Jinina and most of the major towns of Nyala and El Fasher. An RSF official claimed that the Sudanese military had handed over weapons to Masalit to fuel a “civil war”. “It’s not the RSF against the army, it’s tribes fighting amongst themselves, but the majority of RSF fighters are from Darfur,” he said.

Ali Mahamat Sebe, mayor of the Chadian border town of Adre, said he feared a wider conflict as cross-border ethnic loyalties could increasingly draw people from Chad and the Central African Republic into the war in Darfur.

After decades of bloodshed, there is little hope of respite for the people of Darfur. Medina Gamar fled Tandulti on the Sudanese border last week after the village came under attack, with armed men also killing those who had crossed into Chad.

“Janjaweed came unexpectedly and started shooting everyone,” she said, comparing her childhood trauma to when armed men shot her parents and her younger sister in 2003. “I’m tired of Darfur always being at war,” she said.