Who are the Janjaweed?
Watch a BBC interview with an ex-soldier of the Janjaweed or BBC reporter Jonah Fisher (Windows Media) in Darfur discussing the Janjaweed with footage of the militia and villages attacked by them. The Janjaweed, or “devils on horseback”, are militias comprised of regional Arab nomads that have organized during Arabs’ rise to power in Sudan in the late twentieth century. They are currently funded by the government to kill, rape, torture and starve millions of people in the region of Darfur. The rise of the Janjaweed can be explained by increased Arab immigration to Darfur and the consequences of the 1984 famine in Darfur. Due to a rise in tension in Arab politics, Arab leaders attempted to increase support by drawing in militias from their respective support networks in Chad, Sudan’s neighbor. The droughts occurring in Chad at the time gave stimulus to this Arab immigration. As Arab presence increased, in 1984, a significant famine forced Darfurians to open up roads to another of Sudan’
