The Darfur region, located in western Sudan, is approximately the size of France.  Slightly more than half of the six million people who live in Darfur are native Africans while the rest are Arab.  Despite severe underdevelopment in the region, the groups enjoyed a long history of peaceful coexistence.  Intermarriage was widespread often leaving one indistinguishable from the other.

In the 1980s, a drought worsened the region's underdevelopment.  Rather than offering constructive solutions, the Arab-run central Government in Khartoum instead questioned the rights of Africans to live in Darfur.  Notions of African inferiority surfaced among the Arab population while government attacks on African villages were a regular occurrence.  In recent years, Africans have increasingly come to be referred to as 'abid' meaning slave.

In response, and in a bid for more influence and political power, in 2003, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), a group consisting of Darfuri Africans, attacked government forces in Darfur.  In response to these attacks, the central government in Khartoum unleashed a large scale military operation tasked with murdering native African men, women and children in Darfur.  The Sudanese government has armed and offered military support to Arab militias known as the Janjaweed to carry out these attacks; they terrorize and burn African villages.  Thus, the Sudanese government chose genocide as a counter insurgency strategy.  The results have been horrific:

An estimated 400,000 ethnic Africans have been killed.

More than 3,200 African villages have been burned and destroyed.

2.4 million people have been displaced.  Internally displaced people (IDPs) are unable to leave IDP camps for fear of Janjaweed attacks.

Four million are reliant upon humanitarian aid while their living conditions are unimaginable.

Rape is rife and is used as tool of violence to destroy families and communities.

Many Darfuri refugees (particularly women, children and the elderly) have fled to the neighbouring country Chad for safety.  However, UN official in Chad warn of the possibility of regional war.  In July 2007, after five years of calls for the United Nations to deploy a force of over 25,000 peacekeepers to Darfur, which included a crucial mandate to protect civilians, the Security Council unanimously approved U.N. Resolution 1769, finally providing needed forces and resources.

The UN's largest mission, it and will eventually consist of 20,000 troops and 6,000 police and civilian personnel.  However, to date, only around 9,000 troops and police have been deployed.  Due to rising violence between rebel groups and the Janjaweed, the UN mission has yet to take place.