In Sudan, No Clear Difference Between Arab and African
The New York Times
October 3, 2004
By SOMINI SENGUPTA
KHARTOUM, Sudan – ABDALLA ADAM KHATIR, 50, is from Darfur, in western Sudan.
His grandmother was an Arab, her grandfather was a member of an African tribe. He calls himself an African.
As a boy in Kabkabiya, deep in the heart of Darfur, he traveled three days by camel caravan to reach the nearest town with an intermediate school. The caravan was led by an Arab, but at no point did he or his family feel unsafe.
As a student here in the capital in the 1960’s, he took up the banner of Arab-African unity, led by the Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser.
But today, Mr. Khatir finds himself wrestling with the gut-wrenching fact that, in the past two years, 102 of his relatives have been killed in Darfur by those he calls Arabs.