Case Study Project . SEE DETAILED INSTRUCTION BELLOW - Essay Example

conflict, as well as multiple contributing factors are explored, and secondly, the study addresses issues of timeliness, adequacy and effectiveness of the international reaction. The logic behind this structure of the research is as follows – while the former could produce sound understanding of both the duration of the conflict and the extent of the atrocities perpetrated by all belligerent parties, hence the scale of the disaster, the latter – the evaluation of the international response – inter alia might help explain the relative failure of the humanitarian efforts, as demonstrated by the current situation in the region (IRIN, 2014).

The crisis in the Darfur – which literally means land of the Fur – region of Sudan could be said to have begun in October 2002 when the Janjaweed militia, trained and equipped by the Sudanese army, carried out violent attacks on the local people from camps in Jabal Kargu, Boni, and Idalghanam in southern Darfur (Collins, 2005: 156; de Waal, 2005: 129). Being characterised by extreme cruelty, involving killings, mutilations, rapes, and abductions, those raids also bore indubitable signs of ethnic cleansing – not only the Fur, Massalit, and Zaghawa were targeted, but also the fields, wells, irrigation works, schools, clinics and other infrastructure was methodically destroyed in order to drive the local population from their holdings (Collins, 2005: 156).

In the early 2003, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA/M) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), who are believed to have themselves attacked civilians in Darfur, started attacking the government forces in response to raids mounted by the government-backed militias (Bellamy, 2005: 31; Collins, 2005: 156; BBC News, 2010). The killings and displacement escalated during the summer and autumn of 2003, while the Sudanese army defeated the SLA north of Kutum in late August; in September 2003, the Chadian government mediated a ceasefire between the belligerent sides, which