Since February 2003, Sudanese government forces and government-backed Janjaweed ethnic militia have engaged in armed conflict with Darfur-based rebel groups in a complex struggle over natural resource rights and political autonomy. Evidence from the International Criminal Court and numerous United Nations and independent humanitarian observers points to a devastating and calculated campaign of human displacement, starvation, rape, and mass slaughter on the part of the Sudanese government and its proxy militias, on a scale unseen since the Rwandan genocide of 1994:

• An estimated 200,000-400,000 civilians have been killed by government forces and the Janjaweed militia since 2003[1]
• More than 2 million civilians have been driven from their homes into displaced person camps in Darfur or refugee camps in neighboring Chad after their villages were destroyed[1]
• More than 4 million civilians, or two-thirds of Darfur’s population, are completely reliant on international aid for survival[1]
• The UN has estimated that the death rate could rise as high as 100,000 per month if security measures, which are under increasing strain today, break down[2]

According to Human Rights Watch, the Darfur Peace Agreement of May 2006 is failing, with attacks on innocent civilians by government-backed militias continuing with impunity[3]. The African Union peacekeeping force of fewer than 8,000 troops is widely considered by its own commanders to be under-funded and under-staffed to meet the mounting need3. The UN-established no-fly zone remains unenforced and Security Council mandates, including Resolution 1706 (August 2006) which called for a robust peacekeeping force in Darfur, have yet to bear fruit[4]. Meanwhile humanitarian aid organizations are faced with mounting obstacles in their efforts to provide life-saving relief in a conflict that is widely termed genocide, as first proposed by the United States government in 2004[4].