 To Darfuris facing starvation, the dichotomous ideology of African versus Arab began to have explanatory power.Amongst some stationary Africans, the ideas that uncaring Arabs in Khartoum had let the famine happen and then Darfuri Arabs armed by their Libyan allies had attacked African farmers began to gain credence.Similarly, semi-nomadic Darfuri Arabs began to seriously consider that Africans had vindictively tried to punish them for the famine by trying to keep them from pastureland and that perhaps the difference between "awlad al-beled" and "awlad al-gharb" was not as great as between Arab and "zurga".