2003 — Darfur's Rebellion Erupts

On February 26, 2003, the Darfur Liberation Front claimed an attack on the town of Golo, the spark historians mark as the beginning of the Darfur conflict. Darfur's farmers and herders had risen against Khartoum over neglect and discrimination.

The regime answered with aerial bombardment and Janjaweed militias. Hundreds of thousands were killed, and millions displaced. In 2008, the world court filed genocide charges against Sudan's president. A claim of responsibility for one attack on a small town opened a conflict that would draw in the world's highest court and scar a region for years. Darfur's name, little heard before, would soon be known around the entire world.