Africa's biggest country is in flames

The Economist has a good article on the situation in Sudan:

Sudan, Africa's largest country, is the scene of two separate but related civil wars. One, between north and south, pits the Arab, Islamist government against rebels who are mostly black African and non-Muslim. This war has been raging intermittently for half a century, but has come tantalisingly close to resolution in the past year: partly because of foreign pressure, especially from America, and partly because both sides, exhausted, wish to stop fighting and share Sudan's new-found oil wealth.

The other war, between the government and two rebel groups in Darfur, pits Muslim against Muslim. The divide in Darfur is ethnic, between Arabs and black Africans. This war flared up only last year. It was seen at first as a mere sideshow, but is now too vast and vile to be ignored.

Worth reading in full.

(via the invisible worm)