Saving Darfur: Everyone's Favourite African War

Africa is a continent riddled with conflict. Most are forgotten wars that rumble away unnoticed for years. Darfur is different. For five years, an unlikely coalition of the religious Rght, the liberal Left, and a smattering of celebrities have kept Darfur's bloody conflict in the headlines. Rob Crilly, East Africa correspondent of The Times , arrived in Sudan in 2005 to find out what made Darfur special.

He found a conflict very different to the one popularized by the Save Darfur movement. This was no simple genocide being carried out by Arabs on black, African tribes. Along the way he rides with rebels on donkeys, gets caught in a Janjaweed attack, and learns lessons from Osama bin Laden's horse.

Rob Crilly has lived and worked in East Africa since 2004, writing for The Times and The Christian Science Monitor , among others. He has traveled extensively through Sudan and reported from war zones in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, and northern Uganda.