Supported by: South Sudan[3] Chad (2005–2010)[4] Eritrea (until 2008)[5] Libya (until 2011)[6] Sudan Chadian rebel groups[8] Anti-Gaddafi forces (2011)[9] Supported by: Ahmed Diraige Khalil Ibrahim † Gibril Ibrahim Abdul Wahid al Nur (SLA-AW) Minni Minnawi (SLA-MM) Abdel Fattah al-Burhan Omar al-Bashir (until April 2019)[17] Musa Hilal (until 2017) Hamid Dawai Ali Kushayb Ahmed Haroun (until April 2019)[18][19] Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo Martin Ihoeghian Uhomoibhi[20]

Owing to the migration of the Banu Hilal tribe in the 11th century AD, the peoples of the Nile valley became heavily Arabicized while the hinterlands remained closer to native Sudanese cultures.

Yet another origin is conflict between the Islamist, Khartoum-based national government and two rebel groups based in Darfur: the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement.

The army was already deployed in both the south, where the Second Sudanese Civil War was drawing to an end, and the east, where rebels sponsored by Eritrea were threatening a newly constructed pipeline from the central oilfields to Port Sudan.

The military planners were aware of the probable consequences of such a strategy: similar methods undertaken in the Nuba Mountains and around the southern oil fields during the 1990s had resulted in massive human rights violations and forced displacements.

On 18 September, the United Nations Security Council issued Resolution 1564 declaring that the Sudanese government had not met its commitments and expressing concern at helicopter attacks and assaults by the Janjaweed.

[73] On 25 August, Sudan rejected attending a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) meeting to explain its plan to send 10,000 Sudanese soldiers to Darfur instead of the proposed 20,000 UN peacekeeping force.

[77] On 25 August, the head of the U.S. State Department's Bureau of African Affairs, Assistant Secretary Jendayi Frazer, warned that the region faced a security crisis unless the UN peacekeeping force deployed.

"[91][check quotation syntax] On 14 September, the leader of the Sudan Liberation Movement, Minni Minnawi, stated that he did not object to the UN peacekeeping force, rejecting the Sudanese government's view that such a deployment would be an act of Western invasion.

[98] On 10 October, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, claimed that the Sudanese government had prior knowledge of attacks by Janjaweed militias in Buram, South Darfur the month before, in which hundreds of civilians were killed.

Pronk, the senior UN official in the country, had been heavily criticized by the Sudanese army after he posted a description of several recent military defeats in Darfur to his personal blog.

[104] In late 2006, Darfur Arabs started their own rebel group, the Popular Forces Troops, and announced on 6 December that they had repulsed an assault by the Sudanese army at Kas-Zallingi the previous day.

[110] According to the Save Darfur Coalition, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and al-Bashir agreed to a cease-fire whereby the Sudanese "government and rebel groups will cease hostilities for a period of 60 days while they work towards a lasting peace.

Colin Thomas-Jensen, an expert on Chad and Darfur at the International Crisis Group think-tank expressed doubts as to whether "this new deal will lead to any genuine thaw in relations or improvement in the security situation".

The agency cited inaction by local authorities from the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM), which controls the region, in addressing security concerns and violence against aid workers.

[126] On 31 July, Mahria gunmen surrounded mourners at the funeral of an important Terjem sheik and killed 60 with rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and belt-fed machine guns.

Most senior rebel leaders attended, with the notable exception of Abdul Wahid al Nur, who headed a rather small splinter group of the SLA/M that he had initially founded in 2003,[127] was considered to be the representatives of a large part of the displaced Fur people.

[135] On 30 September, the rebels overran an AMIS base, killing at least 12 peacekeepers in "the heaviest loss of life and biggest attack on the African Mission" during a raid at the end of Ramadan season.

[citation needed] General Martin Agwai, head of the joint African Union-United Nations mission in Darfur, said the war was over in the region, although low-level disputes remained.

[144] In December 2010, representatives of the Liberation and Justice Movement (LJM), an umbrella organisation of ten rebel groups formed in February 2010,[145] started a fresh round of talks with the Sudanese government in Doha.

[179] However, the deal included terms to integrate rebels into the security forces, and to grant them political representation and economic and land rights, in addition to a 10-year plan to invest $750 million to develop southern and western regions, and to guarantee the return for displaced people.

[203] Also, the decision to declare a state of emergency in the region was applauded by the UN envoy for Sudan, Volker Perthes and he urged the government to ensure the protection of humanitarian organizations, so as to provide services to the victims of the violence.

[233] Immediately after the Janjaweed entered the conflict, the rape of women and young girls, often by multiple militiamen and often throughout entire nights, began to be reported at a staggering rate.

[245] In May 2005, the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) of the School of Public Health of the Université catholique de Louvain in Brussels, Belgium published an analysis of mortality in Darfur.

[273] The report provides evidence that the Sudan Air Force conducted indiscriminate aerial bombings of villages in Darfur and eastern Chad using ground attack fighters and repurposed Antonov transport planes.

[276] Human rights advocates and opponents of the Sudanese government portray China's role in providing weapons and aircraft as a cynical attempt to obtain oil, just as colonial powers once supplied African chieftains with the military means to maintain control as they extracted natural resources.

[289] Gérard Prunier, a scholar specializing in African conflicts, argued that the world's most powerful countries have limited themselves to expressing concern and demand for the United Nations to take action.

[252] On 16 October 2006, Minority Rights Group (MRG) published a critical report, challenging that the UN and the great powers could have prevented the crisis and that few lessons appeared to have been drawn from the Rwandan genocide.

MRG's executive director, Mark Lattimer, stated that: "this level of crisis, the killings, rape and displacement could have been foreseen and avoided ... Darfur would just not be in this situation had the UN systems got its act together after Rwanda: their action was too little too late.

[292][293] The Brutality of the militias, the violence which was used by the armed forces, the corruption and the human rights abuses were also shown on ER television series (e.g. episodes 12x19, 12x20), as well as in the 2007 documentaries They Turned Our Desert Into Fire[294] and The Devil Came on Horseback.