The Devil Came on Horseback

A new documentary and book chronicle how genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan has transformed a country—and a former Marine who witnessed it.

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


The Devil Came on Horseback (a BreakThru Films production) tells the story of genocide in Darfur through the eyes of Brian Steidle, a former U.S. Marine who lands a job—through Craigslist—as an unarmed military observer taking photographs for the African Union in Darfur. Stark footage of decimated villages and the smoldering remains of people—including children—burned alive make The Devil Came on Horseback a harrowing film to watch. Steidle’s reactions to the genocide are compressed into a compelling, beautifully photographed hour-and-a-half film that captures the Sudan’s natural beauty as well as its turmoil.

Steidle is hired to monitor a 2004 cease-fire meant to end a 20-year civil war between the Sudanese government, a military dictatorship led by wealthy Arab Muslims in the north, and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, which was fighting on behalf of mostly poor, rural, and Christian black African tribes to the south. A week after responding to the online ad, he gets his plane ticket to Khartoum, Sudan.

Armed with a digital camera, an audio recorder, and notebooks, Steidle travels throughout Sudan and Chad with a straightforward assignment: take pictures, talk to locals, and submit detailed reports to the AU about what he has seen and heard. He had no idea what he was getting into. As he later reports, more than 2 million people perished and about 4 million had been displaced because of the conflict, and the cease-fire had not stopped the killings. Darfur’s population, which is black, was (and still is) being targeted by armed groups known as “the devil on a horse,” or Janjaweed. The Janjaweed, who are allegedly sponsored by the Sudanese government, kill Darfuris simply because they are Africans and not Arabs.

The film tells a horrific tale at a brisk pace; cameras shoot from helicopters, from moving vehicles, and inside people’s homes; they hang onto Steidle’s—and the Janjaweed’s —every move.

Steidle photographs villages that the Janjaweed have plundered and burned, he interviews rape victims, and talks to parents whose children are missing. Many of the attacks follow the same script: First, the raiders cut off power to local cellphone towers; then helicopters bomb the village; finally the Janjaweed arrive on horses, on foot, or in jeeps, and burn everything. Only ashes are left behind. A Janjaweed defector tells Steidle, “The order is to go kill. When they attack a village, they start repeating their specific slogans, like ‘kill the slaves.’ Then they attack directly and quickly.”

The job takes its toll on Steidle. In a passage from his book (also titled The Devil Came on Horseback), he recalls someone shouting at him, “What good are you? You can’t protect us,” after which Steidle writes in a letter to his sister, “We don’t have any authority here. [A man whose wife had been kidnapped in a raid] pointed across the hut and said ‘That is the man who stole her.’ The guy who was being accused just shrugged and admitted it. What could we do? Nothing.” Excerpts like this from the book and similar scenes in the film make you wonder why Steidle was hired in the first place, and how effective the AU really is.

By the time his job is up, at least one million more people have been displaced by militias in Darfur. Later, Steidle learns that only four of the 80 reports he submitted were actually read because, he suspects, the Sudanese government was diverting his mail.

When he arrives back in the states, New York Times columnist Nick Kristof publishes his photos and presents his story to a mainstream audience. He meets with Condoleeza Rice and debates Sudanese immigrants who don’t believe his reports. “The things you see here were not meant to be seen. You see people who have no value for human life,” he says while showing his pictures to an awestruck audience. In one of the film’s final shots, Steidle breaks down and begins crying, no longer able to detach himself from the truth behind the story that he’s been watching unfold.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate