What has happened in Darfur?
Since early 2003, Sudanese government forces and ethnic militia called Janjaweed have engaged in an armed conflict with two rebel groups called the Sudanese Liberation Army/Movement (SLA/SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM). As part of its operations against the rebels, government forces have waged a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing against the civilian population who are members of the same ethnic groups as the rebels. Between 2003 and 2005, the Sudanese government and the Janjaweed militias burned and destroyed hundreds of rural villages, killed tens of thousands of people and raped and assaulted thousands of women and girls. The government’s campaign forced more than two million Darfurians from their homes. As of 2006, some 1.8 million live in camps in Darfur and approximately 220,000 have fled into Chad, where they live in refugee camps. In addition to the people displaced by the conflict, at least 1.5 million other people need some form of food assistance becaus
