Darfur is bleeding once more with a fresh wave of attacks ripping through western Sudan’s troubled region. Since the military coup in October, over 100 people have been killed and at least 46 villages destroyed after conflict broke out in West Darfur State. In 2021, violence has escalated across the region, and displacement has soared to levels unseen in years. What is behind this surge in violence?

In 2003, armed groups began a rebellion in Darfur, a relatively prosperous region the size of France where black African locals, including the Fur, Zaghawa, and Masalit peoples, complained that the government in Khartoum was persecuting them. In response, President Omar al-Bashir armed nomadic Arab cattle-herders, turning them into the Janjaweed, a government-sponsored paramilitary, unleashing them upon black farmers. Between 2003 and 2005, at least 200,000 people were killed and a further 2.5m driven from their homes. The campaign’s brutality was such that in 2010 the International Criminal Court indicted Mr Bashir on charges of genocide.

After a decade of intermittent conflict, the Juba peace agreement was signed in October 2020, promising reparations and justice for victims of past wars, and including plans for returning displaced people to their homes. However, crucially, it excluded the two most powerful rebel factions. For non-Arab Darfuris, the peace agreement has proven unpopular as security concerns have only grown. According to Human Rights Watch, inter-communal violence surged in 2020 while the UN recorded an alarming increase in “intercommunal clashes” with 28 incidents in the second half of 2020, an 87 per cent increase on 2019. The end of the UN-African Union peacekeeping mission after thirteen years in December 2020 has exacerbated the security vacuum.

In El Geneina in West Darfur State, at least 300 people died in two incidents alone in early 2021, triggering Sudan’s highest number of conflict displacements in six years. Many blamed the transitional government in Khartoum. Some have argued that the country’s political transition after Mr Bashir’s removal from power in 2019 has had a destabilising effect, stoking grievances between local elites. Since the military coup in October of this year, protests that started in Khartoum have spread to Darfur. Non-Arab Darfuris say the Janjaweed are exploiting the shutdown of telecommunication networks to seize land and sow chaos.

The enduring humanitarian crisis, which continues to affect 8.5m people, and worsening droughts only add to the toxic mixture as bad politics provokes protests and authorities respond with draconian crackdowns. Darfur’s downward spiral is jeopardising the fragile peace agreement which aimed to pave the way for armed and unarmed opposition groups in Sudan to join the transitional government.

With the military junta’s vicelike grip on power in Khartoum, it is unclear what happens next. Many of Sudan’s neighbours are already wracked by civil war, internal conflicts and Islamist insurgencies. If Darfur’s forgotten crisis were to explode it could have dangerous implications for Sudan and the wider region. With the Janjaweed operating with impunity and unresolved grievances festering, Darfur is threatening to unravel once again.