War Continues, Civilians Die

Omar Ismail, co-founder Darfur Peace and Development.

"Even as Sudan celebrates the recent end of the 20-year conflict between the country's Muslim north and mostly Christian south, promising peace throughout this troubled country, the ethnic violence that has devastated villages in the western region of Darfur continues unchecked while the world's eyes are elsewhere."

"...a game of cat-and-mouse playing out as territory shifted between African rebels and government soldiers with their Arab militia allies."

"In this game, villages have become battlefields on which the armies never meet, chasing each other away and then taking out a grievous toll in burned huts, hungry children, looted livestock and naked terror."

"Leaders of the main rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement, are to meet with Vice President Ali Osman Taha in Nigeria next month to negotiate a settlement to the crisis. But cease-fire agreements reached in the past have quickly been broken, and it is unclear whether the political leaders of the warring factions still control their militants." [read more]