Masalit people

The Masalit are a people of western Darfur in Sudan and eastern Chad, speaking a language of the Maban family and living mainly as farmers. In the late 19th century they formed the sultanate of Dar Masalit, with its capital at El Geneina, which resisted both Darfur and the French before passing under British rule in Sudan in the 1920s. They suffered heavily in the Darfur conflicts after 2003.