Khartoum: Six weeks into the brutal conflict, Mini Minawi, the governor of Sudan's western Darfur region, urged his people to "take up arms."

Since the conflict began on April 15, much of the fiercest fighting has taken place in the capital Khartoum and in Darfur, close to the Chadian border.

An ex-rebel leader named Minawi has expressed his support for the national army's conflict with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

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He stated on Twitter that "there are many who do not wish for the safety or rights of citizens and purposefully sabotage national institutions."

I urge all of our deserving citizens, including the men, women, and children of Darfur, to take up arms in order to defend their property.

The region of Darfur has already experienced decades of unrest that have resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths, more than two million displaced people, and an abundance of weapons.

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The war there started in 2003 when Omar Bashir, the president of Sudan at the time, sent in the dreaded Janjaweed militia to quell an uprising among ethnic minorities.

The Janjaweed are the ancestors of the Rapid Support Forces, which are currently at war with the Sudanese army and are led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.

Hundreds of civilians have been killed in some of the worst fighting currently occurring, markets have been set on fire, and there has been widespread looting of medical and aid facilities.

Concerns about the militarization of the remaining Sudanese have led to the migration of tens of thousands of people into Chad across the border.

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According to research conducted by the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey in 2017, there were 6.6 guns for every 100 people in Sudan.

Before Minawi made his call to arms, the United Nations had already issued a warning that civilians were being armed in the conflict.