Janjaweed

Janjaweed, Arab militia in Sudan, particularly in the Darfur region, that was most active in the first decade of the 2000s. The militia’s name is thought by many to be derived from the Arabic jinnī (spirit) and jawad (horse), although its etymological origins are not completely clear. The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group, active in Sudan since 2013, has its roots in the Janjaweed.

Origins

The Janjaweed has its origins in the long-running civil war that gripped one of Sudan’s neighbors, Chad. Another neighbor, Libya, intervened in the conflict in 1980. To supplement its own forces in the region, Libya provided material support to Arab nomads in eastern Chad. Across the border in Darfur, the Sudanese government gave arms and ammunition to Arabic-speaking Abbala nomads and enlisted them to act as an armed deterrent against Chadian incursions into Sudan during that time. Those two groups would later form the basis of the Janjaweed.

Although a truce brought Libyan intervention in Chad to an end in 1987, by then civil war had resumed in Sudan, as sporadic fighting between the south and the north gave way to a full rebellion in 1983. The overlapping conflicts provided continuous circumstances under which the militias could operate. Over the following decade, the two armed Arab groups formed a loose coalition. The militias raided villages along the Chad-Sudan border throughout the 1990s, but the violence derived primarily from clashes between farmers and pastoralists over land and water rights. The attitude of the Sudanese government in Khartoum toward the militias ranged from tacit support, as the government provided the militias with supplies so they could supplement the Sudanese army in its fight against the rebel Sudanese People’s Liberation Army, to benevolent neglect, as the government did little to halt the banditry in which the militias engaged.

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Campaign in Darfur

The nature of militia activity in Darfur took on a new dimension in 2003. Beginning in 2002, rebels from Darfur’s sedentary agriculturalist population (primarily African groups), protesting what they contended was unfair treatment by the Arab-dominated Sudanese government, conducted strikes on government installations. The Sudanese armed forces retaliated with devastating aerial bombardments of rebel strongholds. Two of the most prominent rebel groups, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), mounted a joint raid on the Sudanese air base at Al-Fāshir in April 2003, destroying aircraft and capturing dozens of prisoners. The Al-Fāshir raid was a psychological blow to the government in Khartoum, and the SLA pressed its advantage, scoring a string of victories against the Sudanese military. In response, the Arab militias—now referred to collectively as the Janjaweed—were organized as a counterinsurgency force. Supplied with arms and communications equipment by Sudanese military intelligence, the highly mobile Janjaweed forces turned the tide of battle in Darfur. They routed the SLA and conducted what was described by international observers as an ethnic cleansing of the Fur, Masalit, and Zaghawa peoples. A typical Janjaweed raid would open with an attack by the Sudanese air force, with helicopter gunships or Antonov bombers targeting civilian settlements. Within hours, mounted Janjaweed would sweep into the area, killing and mutilating the men, raping the women, and killing or kidnapping the children. The raiders would then destroy the basic necessities of village life—burning fields and houses, poisoning wells, and seizing anything of value. Between 2003 and 2008, hundreds of thousands were killed and millions were displaced as the Janjaweed targeted civilian populations across Darfur.

The Janjaweed’s campaign, which was characterized as genocide by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell in 2004, drew international condemnation, but the government of Sudanese Pres. Omar Hassan al-Bashir denied any connection between itself and the Janjaweed. Some 7,000 troops under the banner of the African Union (AU) were dispatched to Darfur in 2004, but the force was too small to act as an effective deterrent to the Janjaweed’s continued attacks. The AU presence was bolstered by a United Nations peacekeeping contingent in 2008, and the combined force, which swelled to more than 22,000, helped curtail Janjaweed activity in Darfur.

The RSF

In the following years, some Janjaweed combatants were absorbed into other Sudanese state security forces. In 2013 Bashir enlisted the use of one Janjaweed faction, led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (also known as Hemedti), which became the Rapid Support Forces (RSF); it was initially placed under the authority of Sudan’s National Intelligence and Security Services. Over time, the RSF emerged as a powerful paramilitary group. In 2019 it cooperated with the country’s military, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), to overthrow Bashir, but the two later came into conflict, in part over plans that called for the RSF to be integrated into the SAF. They have battled for dominance since April 2023, and their conflict has devastated the country.

For more detailed coverage of the RSF paramilitary group, see Rapid Support Forces.

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ICC investigation

In 2005 the International Criminal Court (ICC) began investigating the allegations that genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity had been committed by militia leaders and Sudanese government officials in Darfur. The first suspect to be brought to trial at the ICC for Darfur-related crimes was a Janjaweed leader, Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman (also known as Ali Kushayb), in 2022. He was charged with 31 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed between August 2003 and April 2004. In October 2025 he was found guilty on 27 of the counts; in December, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison.