Diffa Arabs

Diffa Arabs (also known as Mahamid Arabs) is the Nigerien name given to Arab nomadic tribespeople living in eastern Niger, mostly in the Diffa Region. Numbering no more than 150,000 and accounting for less than 1.5% of the Niger's population, the Diffa Arabs are in fact the western most dispersion of Arabic speaking Sudanese nomads, primarily drawn from the Mahamid sub clan of Sudan and Chad.

The Nigerien Arab populations include groups drawn from the Shoa or Baggara Arabs, the first clans of whom are believed to have arrived in what is now Niger sometime in the 19th century. Small groups of the Ouled Sliman, overrunning the Kanem Empire, filtered into the area between the late 19th century and 1923, joining with those Shoa pastoralists who were already centered in Tintouma area. In the 1950s a small number of Kanem–Chadian Arabs moved into the area, but the population remained small. In the mid 1970s there were only around 4000 nomadic Arabs in eastern Niger. But following the 1974 Sahelian Drought a much larger population of Sudan Arab clans began to move into Niger, followed by others fleeing the civil war and the Chadian-Libyan conflict in the 1980s, settling near Diffa.

Many in the Diffa Arab community fought against 1990s Tuareg rebellion, and in recent years, have come into increased conflict with Hausa, Kanuri, and Tuareg communities. News reports quote Nigerien officials during the 2001 census reporting that Arab communities were in constant conflict with their neighbors over resources, were armed, and that "A relative unanimity prevails among the population who want them to leave the area"

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