Two decades after the vow of “Never Again,” the same villages burn, the same people flee, and the same perpetrators walk free. Inaction is not neutrality — it is the final weapon of genocide.

I. Introduction: The return of an old war

Twenty years ago, Darfur’s name became synonymous with genocide. Images of scorched villages, mass graves, and endless streams of displaced families shocked the conscience of the world. Global leaders swore that such horrors would “never again” be allowed to happen.

Today, those vows lie in tatters. Darfur burns once more. The same communities are hunted, the same villages reduced to ash, and the same patterns of mass killing and forced displacement unfold — often at the hands of the very actors, or their successors, who perpetrated the original crimes.

The war that reignited in 2023 is not a new conflict. It is the continuation of an unfinished crime — waged with renewed ferocity, under the gaze of an international system that mistakes inaction for neutrality, and silence for diplomacy.

II. Geography and geopolitics: The anatomy of a powder keg

Darfur spans a vast expanse of western Sudan — 493,000 square kilometres, larger than the United Kingdom and nearly the size of France — and is home to a rich mosaic of almost 80 tribes and ethnic groups divided between nomads and sedentary communities.

It borders Chad, Libya, and the Central African Republic, positioning it at a volatile crossroads where the instability of neighboring states seeps across porous frontiers.

This location has made Darfur not only a Sudanese crisis but a strategic fault line in Africa’s security landscape. It serves as a corridor for arms smuggling, illicit trade, and irregular migration from the Sahel to the Mediterranean.