About the Book

Sudan‘s westernmost region, Darfur, sprang into notoriety early in 2004 when a war of hideous proportions unleashed what the United Nations called ‘the world‘s worst humanitarian crisis‘. For the last two years, the conflict has been simplified to pictures of sprawling refugee camps and lurid accounts of ‘Arabs‘ murdering ‘Africans.‘ Behind these images lies a complex story of a remote region of Africa. This book details the history of Darfur, its conflicts, and the designs on the region by the governments in Khartoum and Tripoli. It investigates the identity of the infamous ‘Janjawiid‘ militia and the nature of the insurrection, charts the unfolding crisis and the international response, and concludes by asking what the future holds in store.

Commendations

'The best introduction is Darfur: A Short History of a Long War by Julie Flint and Alex de Waal. Both writers are intimately familiar with Darfur - Ms Flint reportedly came close to getting herself killed there when travelling with rebels in 2004 - and their accounts are as readable as they are tragic' - Nicholas D. Kristof in The New York Review of Books

'Flint and de Waal explicitly seek to narrate Darfur's history on its own terms...and their account is especially strong on the local dynamics of the conflict. They provide a wealth of information about Darfuri politics and history, including biographical accounts of rebel and militia leaders, as well as nuanced discussions of political lineages and movements in the region.' - Perspectives on Politics

‘…a very clear-sighted account…the book I would give first to anyone wanting to become acquainted with the crisis in Darfur.’ – Rex Sean O’Fahey, African Affairs, Oct 2007

Contents

Preface
1. The People of Darfur
2. The Government of Sudan
3. The Janjawiid
4. The Rebels
5. The War
6. Endgame

About the Authors

Alex de Waal is a writer and activist on African issues. He is a fellow of the Global Equity Initiative, Harvard; Director of the Social Science Research Council program on AIDS and social transformation; and a director of Justice Africa in London. In his twenty-year career, he has studied the social, political and health dimensions of famine, war, genocide and the HIV/AIDS epidemic, especially in the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes. He has been at the forefront of mobilizing African and international responses to these problems. His books include, 'Famine that Kills: Darfur Sudan,' (Oxford, first edition 1989, revised 2004), 'Famine Crimes: Politics and the Disaster Relief Industry in Africa,' (James Currey 1997) and 'Islamism and Its Enemies in the Horn of Africa,' (Hurst, 2004).

Julie Flint is a journalist and film-maker who divides her time between London and the Middle East. In a thirty-year career, she has worked on four continents, from Colombia to China, and won awards for newspapers, radio and television. She has been writing about Sudan since 1992, initially as Horn of Africa correspondent for the Guardian and later as a freelance with a special interest in human rights. She has written extensively on the Nuba of Sudan, the oil war in southern Sudan and, most recently, Darfur. Her work includes 'Sudan's Secret War' (BBC2 1995), The Scorched Earth (Christian Aid 2000) and Darfur Destroyed (Human Rights Watch 2004).