"Ethnically black" is not a helpful expression. Australian aborigines would be "ethnically black" but are completely distinct from subSahara African blacks. Skin colour is only one and not the best indicator of ethnic (racial) differences.

from the Wikipedia article about Darfur:

The main ethnic groups are the Fur (after whom the region is named), speaking a Nilo-Saharan language, and the Arab Baggara. Others include the non-Arab Zaghawa, Masalit, and Midob….Relations between Arab and non-Arab inhabitants have been tense during much of Darfur's history.

Or, from Carol’s link: Khartoum used militias, known locally as Janjaweed and drawn from Arab tribes, to crush the rebellion.

While the conflict has a political basis, it has also acquired an ethnic dimension in which civilians were deliberately targeted on the basis of their ethnicity (Wikipedia)

Kofi Annan too has spoken of “ethnic cleansing” as well as Human Rights Watch has.

A UN observer team did report: The 23 Fur villages in the Shattaya Administrative Unit have been completely depopulated, looted and burnt to the ground (the team observed several such sites driving through the area for two days). Meanwhile, dotted alongside these charred locations are unharmed, populated and functioning Arab settlements. In some locations, the distance between a destroyed Fur village and an Arab village is less than 500 meters. (UN Interagency Report cited below, 25 April 2004)

Language and style of living may contribute but the killing is ethnically discriminate. Mostly, Non-Arabs kill Arabs and vice versa. The differential way the weapons are available to both groups it happens that most killers are Arabs and most killed are Non-Arabs.


Wolfgang