There are also about 1.5 million nomads, the ethnic Kuchis.
The leaders of these elite units were Tuaregs — the very ethnic nomads who were overrunning northern Mali.
In the case of Emzigar, located in the shadow of a mountain by the same name, it was an ethnic Tuareg nomad named Cherif who, as he tended to his camels and goats, found an interesting-looking rock.
The lives of ethnic Tibetan nomads may seem remote from the row crops and feed lots of the American Midwest, but Lynn True and Nelson Walker's documentary "Summer Pasture" resonated with my own experience in some central respects.
The NGO said that most of the Muslims still in the western part of the CAR are ethnic Peuhl nomads, who are living in small and increasingly dangerous enclaves guarded by African Union peacekeepers and French troops.
Mr. Bashir's plan seems to be to encourage Arab nomads to drive out other ethnic groups from areas with oil.
Tuam, outside Galway, became the first Irish locality to be led by a member of the Travelers, an ethnic minority of nomads, when its Town Council selected Martin Ward as mayor.
Eduardo Giannetti, an economist and philosopher, thinks that the Brazilian ethnic mixture of indigenous nomads, Portuguese settlers seeking a quick fortune and Africans brought to the country in chains bequeathed an entrenched habit of spending now and saving some other time.
Most of these nomads and farmers have sat out the war in the bush, cut off and not on aid agencies' radar.They worry that one of the first task of any UN deployment would be to disarm not just the janjaweed but them too, a move that they say would spell an end to their wandering way of life: the war has so poisoned inter-ethnic relations that no nomad would dare travel unarmed.
Turns out that those officers, who were supposed to battle the rebels, were ethnic Tuaregs, the same nomads who were part of the rebellion.
It's an ethnic fight between Arab nomads and black African farmers over resources, land and, especially, water.
