Everything about Darfur totally explained
Darfur (
daar foor, lit. "home of the
Fur people") is a region in
Sudan. An independent
sultanate for several hundred years, it was incorporated into Sudan by
Anglo-Egyptian forces. The region is divided into three federal states:
West Darfur,
South Darfur, and
North Darfur which are coordinated by a
Transitional Darfur Regional Authority. Due to the
Darfur Conflict, the region has been in a state of humanitarian emergency since 2003.
The rainy season is from June through September, transforming much of the region from dusty brown to verdant green. As much of the population of Darfur is agricultural, the rains are vital. In normal years,
pearl millet, a mainstay crop is ready to be harvested by November. Once harvested, the dry stalks may be fed to domestic livestock. In the far northern desert, years may pass between rainfall. In the far south, annual average rainfall is 700 mm and many trees remain green year-round.
Geography
Darfur covers an area of some — approximately the size of
Spain. It is largely an arid plateau with the
Marrah Mountains (Jebel Marra), a range of volcanic peaks rising up to of
topographic prominence, in the center of the region. The region's main towns are
Al Fashir,
Nyala, and
Geneina.
The Republic of Sudan is on the south-eastern border of Egypt, and lies on the western shore of the Red Sea. There are four main features of the physical geography. The whole eastern half of Darfur is covered with
plains and low
hills of
sandy soils, known as
goz, and
sandstone hills. In many places the
goz is waterless and can only be inhabited where there are water reservoirs or deep
boreholes. While dry,
goz may also support rich pasture and
arable land. To the north the
goz is overtaken by the desert sands of the
Sahara. A second feature are the
wadis, which range from seasonal watercourses that flood only occasionally during the wet season to large
wadis that
flood for most of the rains and flow from western Darfur hundreds of miles west to
Lake Chad. Many
wadis have pans of
alluvium with rich soil that are also difficult to cultivate. Western Darfur is dominated by the third feature,
basement rock, sometimes covered with a thin layer of sandy soil. Basement rock is too infertile to be farmed, but provides sporadic forest cover that can be grazed by animals. The fourth and final feature are the
Marrah Mountains, volcanic plugs created by a
massif, that rise up to a peak at
Deriba crater where there's a small area of temperate climate, high rainfall and permanent springs of water.
Remote sensing has detected the imprint of a vast underground lake under Darfur. The potential water deposits are estimated at . The lake, during epochs when the region was more humid, would have contained about 607 cubic miles of water. It may have dried up thousands of years ago.
Government
The region is divided into three federal states:
West Darfur,
South Darfur, and
North Darfur. The Darfur Agreement established a
Transitional Darfur Regional Authority (
TDRA) as an interim authority for the region. The agreement states that a referendum on autonomy for Darfur should be held no later than 2011.
Minni Minnawi is the current Chairperson of the TDRA.
Conflict
Scarce natural resources are a cause of fighting among the people of the largely nomadic north of Darfur and the farmers who inhabit the south.
The president of the country,
Omar al-Bashir, an Arabic speaking
black African, with affiliation to the north, has backed a mercenary group, the
Janjaweed, to flush out, by many controversial means, the rebels who operate from the midst of southern farmers.
This conflict has often been erroneously characterized as one between
races (Arabs versus blacks), when in reality both sides of the conflict are represented by blacks, with the people of the north being mainly nomads and Arabic speaking, and the people of the south being farmers and non-Arabic speaking. There have been reports of torture, rapes and murders. Some even go so far as amputating limbs of victims as a warning to others. Certain circles have applied the term "genocide".
Many Darfurians have fled to Chad and UN forces are attempting to send food by air, but the Janjaweed have proved to be an obstruction in many instances.
China has been accused of supporting the economy of Sudan, with Omar al-Bashir using some of the money for purchases of weapons, food, vehicles, and whatever else they need to maintain control of the natural resources in Darfur. However China is far from the only nation having an impact on Sudan.
India is also an important buyer of Sudanese oil. In 2006,
Japan purchased more oil from Sudan than any other single country.
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