The African Union-UN Joint Special Representative for Darfur, Mohamed Ibn Chambas says that the current cycle of violence in Darfur bears ‘similarities’ to conflict dynamics in 2003, when the ten-year civil war first started.

Chambas said this during a visit to Brussels, where he met European Union (EU) officials. He delivered a lecture at Friedrich-Ebert Foundation on 20 May.

The peacekeeping official explained that Darfur appears to be undergoing a new cycle of violence: “Civilians have been direct targets of violence leading many to draw parallels between today’s conflict dynamics and the armed conflict in 2003.”

“While we should approach this comparison with caution, similarities do exist,” he said.

Chambas noted that the structural issues that drove the 2003 conflict remained unresolved and traditional resolution mechanisms have been weakened, UNAMID’s information office reported after the speech.

He mentioned that increasing poverty and criminality, competition over land, water and mineral resources. He referred also to “a new wave of displacements and deliberate emptying of certain areas.”

The official warned that the crisis is ‘deepening,’ saying, “If international community fails to grasp this pattern, create much-wider awareness, put pressure on parties to the conflict to negotiate, and help in any way it can to halt the spiral into renewed violence, the impact could be widespread and more debilitating.”

Fie photo: Militia in Darfur