MER Article Slavery, Genocide and the Politics of Outrage In October 1999, PBS aired The Wonders of the African World, a six-part documentary produced by the renowned African-American intellectual, Henry Louis Gates, wherein the Harvard educator travels from Egypt to Sudan and down the Swahili coast of East Africa and up though parts of West Africa examining the encounter Hisham Aïdi • 48 min read
Current Analysis The Politics of Slaughter in Sudan One day in the summer of 2004, more than 400 armed members of the janjaweed militia attacked the western Sudanese village of Donki Dereisa. They killed 150 civilians, including six young children, aged 3 to 14, who were captured during the assault and burned alive later that day, according to Dan Connell • 11 min read
Current Analysis Darfur: Worst Humanitarian Crisis “The worst humanitarian crisis in the world today”—so relief agencies and news reports refer to the catastrophe still unfolding in the westernmost Sudanese province of Darfur. With the United Nations estimating that 50,000 people have been killed and 1 million displaced, the description is apt. But Maren Milligan • 2 min read
Current Analysis Darfur's Manmade Disaster At last, the catastrophe in the western Sudanese region of Darfur, a quarter of whose six million people are now displaced by war and whose lives are at serious risk, has gained some international attention. In July, Secretary of State Colin Powell and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan visited Darfuri refugee Peter Verney • 9 min read
MER Article Peace in Sudan When negotiations in July 2002 at Machakos, Kenya between the Islamist government of Sudan and rebels of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) produced a "framework agreement" of shared ideas on the future of the country, Assistant Secretary of State Walter Kansteiner touted the possibility of Dan Connell • 12 min read
MER Article Two Miles into Limbo As many as five million Sudanese displaced by the country’s 19-year civil war live in Egypt, many on the urban margins of Cairo. Mostly poor and unemployed, the Sudanese displaced get by in an environment where no one -- the Egyptian government, civil society or the UN -- seems willing or able to he Pascale Ghazaleh • 15 min read
Current Analysis Peace in Sudan Doubtful With negotiations between the government of Sudan and the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) about to break off as both parties consult with their leaderships, UN and US officials express unguarded optimism that a deal can be hammered out to end the longest-running and one of the Dan Connell • 8 min read
Current Analysis Sudan's Opposition and the US Secretary of State Colin Powell's recent four-nation trip to Africa produced a flurry of press coverage on renewed US interest in ending the 18-year Sudanese civil war. Despite Bush's nomination of a special envoy to spearhead a new peace initiative, the Bush administration's policy Dan Connell • 7 min read
MER Article Lurking Insecurity Black clouds off the Nile River hang low over Mandela Camp, ushering in the storms that bring misery to an already wretched existence on the outskirts of Sudan’s capital. The clouds soon open up over the sprawling squatter settlement, and the rain begins its relentless fall. Barnaba Marial Marol, hi Anthony Shadid • 8 min read
MER Article What's New in the New Sudan? The hum of approaching aircraft sends residents of this dusty rebel outpost scurrying for cover. The over-flights may be the United Nations planes from Operation Lifeline Sudan carrying famine relief -- or Sudanese Air Force Antonov-27s searching for signs of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement ( Dan Connell • 6 min read
MER Article Migration, Modernity and Islam in Rural Sudan For the villagers of Wad al-Abbas in northern Sudan, transnational migration has generated new understandings of what it means to be a Muslim. From the mid-1970s through the 1980s, Wad al-Abbas’s incorporation into the global economy was mediated primarily by Saudi Arabia. The Saudi kingdom exerted Victoria Bernal • 8 min read
MER Article The Political Roots of Famine in Southern Sudan Given that a large contingent of foreign aid workers and UN representatives has been on the scene in Sudan for a decade, why did no one foresee the current famine in southern Sudan, which is affecting more than a million people? Jeff Drumtra • 6 min read
