Religious Aspect

I want to discuss some of the religious aspects that are involved in the Darfur crisis. I am pointing out this article from the Washington Post because it explains this very well. The article, entitled "5 truths about Darfur." It's very informative and clears up some of the confusion and speculations about the crisis.

The first truth is "nearly everyone is Muslim." (For more information about the Islam religion, visit this wikipedia site)

An excerpt from the Washington Post article follows:
"Darfur is home to some of Sudan's most devout Muslims, in a country where 65 percent of the population practices Islam, the official state religion.
A long-running but recently pacified war between Sudan's north and south did have religious undertones, with the Islamic Arab-dominated government fighting southern Christian and animist African rebels over political power, oil and, in part, religion.

"But it's totally different in Darfur," said Mathina Mydin, a Malaysian nurse who worked in a clinic on the outskirts of Nyala, the capital of South Darfur. "As a Muslim myself, I wanted to bring the sides together under Islam. But I quickly realized this war had nothing to do with religion.""

Emily Wax, the reporter, also discusses her travels and seeing destroyed mosques. This last quote surprised me. I thought religion was an aspect of the war, but as Mathina Mydin says, it has nothing to do with it. This makes it even harder for me to understand the reasons for these atrocities to continue.