Fragments of Darfur presents photographs that Nerris (Nektarios) Markogiannis made over two years in the field as a photographer for the United Nations. The publisher’s account of the conflict provides the book’s context: at the time of the book’s publication, the publisher described an ongoing war in Darfur and slow peace negotiations that had begun in 2010. Around 300,000 people are estimated to have died from the combined effects of war, hunger and disease.

The publisher traces the conflict’s background. Darfur is inhabited by tribes of both African and Arab lineage, groups that had co-existed for centuries. Increasing desertification of the region in the 1970s and 1980s pushed nomadic Arab tribes south in search of water and grazing land; they arrived at the settlements of the Africans, and skirmishes followed, though the fighting was small in scale and ended in 1994. The conflict resumed in 2003, when African rebel groups, believing their communities neglected and marginalised, came together under the banner of the Darfur Liberation Front and attacked government locations. The Sudan government responded with major land and air assaults; by summer 2003 the Janjaweed had become involved, and by spring 2004 they had killed several thousand non-Arabs and driven an estimated million more from their homes. Not until more than 100,000 refugees, pursued by Janjaweed militia, escaped to neighbouring Chad did the conflict capture international attention.

Born in Greece, Markogiannis began working as a photographer for the UN in 2008 in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations. His photographs have been featured internationally in a wide range of magazines and journals. Dewi Lewis Publishing issues the book as a 96-page softback, 210mm by 280mm, with 63 duotone photographs.