On 5 May 2006 the Government of Sudan (GoS) and one rebel group, SLM-Minawi, signed the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA). This ceasefi re and peace agreement was the result of intense pressure from the international community and the African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council on both the parties and the mediators in the hope of ending the killing and human rights violations in Darfur. Six previous rounds of talks and the agreements they produced had failed to accomplish this.

A Widening War around Sudan: the Proliferation of Armed Groups in the Central African Republic examines the origins and diffusion of armed groups in northern CAR and emerging responses to instability in the border areas with Sudan and Chad.

In early April 2007, China dispatched Assistant Foreign Minister Zhai Jun to Sudan to discuss Khartoum’s acceptance of UN peacekeeping support for Darfur, which Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir had long rejected. It was an unusually direct overture from Beijing, which had steadfastly protected the sovereignty of its African trade partner. Shortly after the visit, Khartoum reversed its previous intransigence and agreed to the ‘heavy support package’ of more than 3,000 UN military personnel to the Darfur region.

On 2 February 2008, a force of around 4,000 fighters from the three main rebel groups in Chad—Union des forces pour la démocratie et le développement (UFDD), UFDD–Fondamentale (UFDD/F), and Rassemblement des forces pour le changement (RFC)— reached the Chadian capital, N’Djamena. Supported by Khartoum, they had come from West Darfur less than a week before, crossing the border around Adé, south of El Geneina.

The formation and functioning of Sudan’s Joint Integrated Units (JIUs), mandated by the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) of January 2005, has proved a major sticking- point in the implementation of the peace agreement. The JIUs are military units composed of members of the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), and are designed to serve both functional and symbolic purposes.

The Drift Back to War: Insecurity and Militarization in the Nuba Mountains examines insecurity and militarization in the Nuba Mountains and surrounding areas, a region that has been overshadowed in recent years by the Darfur conflict and, more recently, the insecurity in Abyei.

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There are many circumstances in which the use of force by the police is considered a legitimate action. Indeed, even in a democratic society, police are distinguished by their legal authority to use force to coerce citizens (Klockars, 1985). Given the high potential for the police to abuse force, checks and balances are needed to minimize the use of force and make officers accountable when they resort to it.

The Small Arms Survey 2015: Weapons and the World (Yearbook 2015) examines the role of weapons and armed violence in humanity’s appropriation of the earth’s wildlife and mineral riches—in Africa, where the poaching of elephants and rhinos is becoming increasingly militarized, and near resource extraction sites around the world.

Isolation and Endurance: Riek Machar and the SPLM-IO in 2016-17 follows on from an earlier Small Arms Survey paper by the author (Young, 2015). It begins where the earlier paper left off with the signing of the ARCSS and ends with the first anniversary of the agreement’s collapse in July 2017.