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War in Darfur: A Visual History

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Visual history of a war

Since 2003: the Sudanese government's Janjaweed campaign against Darfur's rebels and their communities, called genocide by the US, and its return under the RSF since 2023.

Fought
2003 to present
Duration
23 years
Dates
February 2003 to present (ongoing; renewed since April 2023)
Deaths
About 300,000 by 2008 (UN estimate); tens of thousands more since 2023; over 3 million displaced from Darfur
Government side
Sudanese army; Janjaweed, later Rapid Support Forces (RSF) under Hemedti; since 2023 SAF and RSF at war with each other
Rebels
SLA (Minnawi and Abdel Wahid factions), JEM; Sudan Revolutionary Front
Status
RSF controls most of Darfur; El Fasher besieged and taken in 2025; famine declared

The War in Darfur began in February 2003 when the Sudan Liberation Army and Justice and Equality Movement attacked government targets, protesting the marginalisation of Darfur's non-Arab peoples. Khartoum responded with air strikes and the Janjaweed Arab militias, who burned villages, killed and raped Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa civilians and drove 2 million from their homes; some 300,000 died by 2008. The US called it genocide; the ICC indicted President al-Bashir; UNAMID peacekeepers arrived in 2008. Peace deals in 2006, 2011 and 2020 fragmented the rebels but not the violence. Since April 2023 the Rapid Support Forces, the Janjaweed's successors, have fought the Sudanese army nationwide and committed new massacres in Darfur, notably at El Geneina and El Fasher, and the war continues.

When it was fought: the era ribbon

The bold bar is War in Darfur. The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

14001500160017001800190020002100War in Darfur (2003 to present)Open: Spanish EmpireSpanish Empire (1492 to 1976)Open: British EmpireBritish Empire (1583 to 1997)Open: Second French colonial empireSecond French colonial empire (1830 to 1980)Open: Mahdist WarMahdist War (1881 to 1899)Open: First Sudanese Civil WarFirst Sudanese Civil War (1955 to 1972)Open: Second Sudanese Civil WarSecond Sudanese Civil War (1983 to 2005)Open: Somali Civil WarSomali Civil War (1991 to present)Open: South Sudanese Civil WarSouth Sudanese Civil War (2013 to 2020)Open: Yemeni Civil WarYemeni Civil War (2014 to present)

Displaced Darfuris

00.881.752.633.52003: 0.32005: 22010: 2.52019: 1.82024: 3.520052010201520202024millions (approximate)

Timeline of the War in Darfur

  1. 2003
    Rebellion; El Fasher airport attack; Janjaweed campaign
  2. 2004
    US declares genocide
  3. 2006
    Darfur Peace Agreement
  4. 2008
    UNAMID deploys; JEM attacks Omdurman
  5. 2009
    ICC warrant for Bashir
  6. 2013
    RSF created
  7. 2019
    Bashir overthrown
  8. 2023
    SAF-RSF war; El Geneina massacre
  9. 2024
    Siege of El Fasher; famine
  10. 2025
    El Fasher falls to the RSF

2003-2005: scorched earth

Darfur's farming peoples had long clashed with Arab herders over land, worsened by drought and Libyan-backed Arab supremacism. When rebels destroyed aircraft at El Fasher airport in April 2003, Bashir's government armed the Janjaweed under leaders like Musa Hilal and coordinated their raids with Antonov bombers. Thousands of villages were burned; refugees fled to Chad and to camps such as Kalma. Colin Powell told Congress it was genocide in September 2004; the UN Security Council referred Darfur to the ICC in 2005.

Peacekeepers, indictments and fragmentation

The African Union mission and, from 2008, the joint UNAMID force of 26,000 struggled with restrictions and attacks. The Darfur Peace Agreement of 2006 split the SLA; JEM raided Omdurman in 2008; the ICC indicted Bashir for genocide in 2009-2010, the first sitting head of state so charged, and he expelled aid agencies. The Doha document of 2011 brought a few factions in; the Janjaweed were formalised as the Rapid Support Forces under Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, 'Hemedti', who fought in Yemen for the Saudis and grew rich from gold. Bashir was overthrown in 2019 and Darfur's rebels signed the Juba agreement in 2020; UNAMID left in 2020.

The RSF war since 2023

The transition collapsed when the army and RSF turned on each other in Khartoum on 15 April 2023. In Darfur the RSF and allied Arab militias overran El Geneina in June 2023, massacring thousands of Masalit and driving 500,000 into Chad, and took every state capital but El Fasher, which they besieged from May 2024 with the Zamzam displaced camp starving under famine, and captured in October 2025 amid reports of mass killings. Sudan's war has created the world's largest displacement crisis, with the RSF backed by the UAE and the army by Egypt and Iran; genocide determinations were made by the US in January 2025.

Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.

Empires of the same era and region

Wars of the same era and region

8 surprising things about the War in Darfur

  1. Darfur was the first conflict the US government officially labelled genocide while it was happening.
  2. Omar al-Bashir was the first sitting head of state indicted by the ICC; he travelled freely for years anyway.
  3. 'Janjaweed' is usually translated as 'devils on horseback'.
  4. Hemedti, the RSF leader, rose from camel trader to Sudan's second most powerful man and controls its gold mines.
  5. The Save Darfur campaign was one of the largest activist movements of the 2000s, backed by George Clooney and others.
  6. El Geneina's Masalit population was largely killed or expelled in 2023 in what UN experts called ethnic cleansing.
  7. Sudan's 2023 war displaced over 12 million people, the largest displacement crisis in the world.
  8. Darfur means 'home of the Fur'; the Fur sultanate was independent until 1916.

Sources

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