Darfur: One of the World's Worst Crises

The situation in Darfur has become one of the world's worst crises; two million people have fled their homes and more than 400,000 civilians have been killed since 2003:

The chaos in Darfur, the war-ravaged region in Sudan where more than 200,000 civilians have been killed, has spread across the border into Chad, deepening one of the world's worst refugee crises.

Gunmen from Darfur have pushed across the desert and entered Chad, stealing cattle, burning crops and killing anyone who resists. The lawlessness has driven at least 20,000 Chadians from their homes, making them refugees in their own country.

Hundreds of thousands more people in this area, along with 200,000 Sudanese who fled here for safety, find themselves caught up in a growing conflict between Chad and Sudan, which have a long history of violence and meddling in each other's affairs.

"You may have thought the terrible situation in Darfur couldn't get worse, but it has," Peter Takirambudde, executive director of the Africa division of Human Rights Watch, said in a recent statement. "Sudan's policy of arming militias and letting them loose is spilling over the border, and civilians have no protection from their attacks, in Darfur or in Chad."

Sudanese people are seen in Nyala in the South Darfur region, September 2005. (AFP/File/Salah Omar)

An internally displaced Sudanese woman sits outside her makeshift hut in Riyad camp in the west Darfur region of Sudan August 24, 2005. Sudan's interior and defense ministers and its national intelligence chief are among 17 people the U.N. Security Council should punish for blocking peace in Darfur, according to a secret list compiled for the council by U.N. experts. (REUTERS/ Antony Njuguna)