For a decade - from 2003 to 2013, and in fact until now - shots have been fired and people have been killed in the Darfur region of Sudan. There is a civil war going on. But what is interesting is that almost no one calls these events a war-they talk about the"Darfur conflict". Although this is not really a two - way conflict, because in Darfur, one side - the Government of the Sudan-is confronted by several dozen rebel movements and tribal militias that are in complex relationships, sometimes hostile to each other. In addition, neighboring countries - Libya, Chad, Uganda, Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Eritrea-are involved in these events. Plus the continuous participation of the UN, other international organizations, and foreign states in attempts to stop the bloodshed. In short, it takes a great deal of knowledge and - without exaggeration-a certain amount of courage to try to talk about this as fully as possible and unravel the tangle that is called the Darfur conflict. These qualities - deep knowledge of the events in Darfur and the courage of a researcher of the most complex problems-are certainly possessed by a young African scholar, Candidate of Political Sciences S. V. Kostelyanets, author of the book " Darfur: a History of the conflict "(Moscow, Institute of Africa of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 2014, 388 p). This voluminous work analyzes the causes and prerequisites, driving forces and course of the conflict, ways to resolve it, as well as the role played by international peacekeeping forces. The main stages of the conflict, which is considered one of the most significant humanitarian disasters of the XXI century, were widely covered by the world and domestic press. But relatively little is known about its root causes. And the author is certainly right to devote the largest chapter of his work to this topic. Armed clashes in various parts of Sudan began in the 1980s, when the first rebel movements appeared in the country. Conflicts have arisen f ... Read more