The war in Darfur all started when the Sudan Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement accused the Sudanese government of favoring Arabs over blacks, although the government denies this. On one side you have the rebel groups like the SLA and JEM that are mostly made up of people from non-Arab ethnic groups. On the other side are the Sudanese military and a militia group that is mostly made up of Arabs. The Sudanese has been accused of supporting the militia group by giving them money even though they deny favoring one side. They have also been accused of participating in attacks on civilians, trying to hide the many bodies of people who have been killed, and arresting and harassing journalists so that not a lot of information can get out about all that is happening in Darfur.With all these people getting murdered the United States government said that it is genocide. The UN doesn’t think it is though. They say that even though there have been many murders and rapes of the citizens in Darfur, the “genocidal intent appears to be missing”. I think this is a bunch of bull. All these people are dying and the UN doesn’t think its genocide. They’re just asking for a repeat of what happened in Rwanda. The UN sent peacekeeping troops to Darfur and the government got pretty mad saying that the UN troops were foreign invaders. The Security Council says it’s going to have to take drastic measures to protect the civilians of Darfur.Many of the civilians have fled to neighboring countries like Chad. There are a lot of different estimates on the number of casualties. For example while the Sudanese government says that there have been roughly 19,500 deaths, the Coalition for International Justice says it’s more like 400,000 deaths. The World Health Organization has estimated about 50,000 deaths. For sure there have been 51 of the peacekeepers that were sent that have been killed.You don’t really realize how good you have it until you start reading about what these people are going through. Many of them have died because of starvation. That would be an absolutely horrible way to die. I think there is a lot more that could be done that isn’t being done and I really think the rest of us need to step up and do something to stop this.Many have died of starvation.
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