Slavery in Sudan began in ancient times, and recently had a resurgence during the Second Sudanese Civil War (1983–2005). During the Trans-Saharan slave trade, many Nilotic peoples from the lower Nile Valley were purchased as slaves and brought to work elsewhere in North Africa and the Orient by Nubians, Egyptians, Berbers and Arabs. Starting in 1995, many human rights organizations have reported on contemporary practice, especially in the context of the Second Sudanese civil war. According to reports of Human Rights Watch and others, during the war the government of Sudan was involved in backing and arming numerous slave-taking militias in the country as part of its war against the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA). It also found the government failed to enforce Sudanese laws against kidnapping, assault and forced labor, or to help victims' families locate their children. Another report (by the International Eminent Persons Group) found both the government-backed militias and the rebels (led by the SPLA) guilty of abducting civilians, though the abducting civilians by pro-government militias was "of particular concern" and "in a significant number of cases", led to slavery "under the definition of slavery in the International Slavery Convention of 1926". The Sudanese government maintained that the slavery is the product of inter-tribal warfare, over which it had no control. According to the Rift Valley Institute, slave raiding and abduction "effectively ceased" in 2002, although an "unknown number" of slaves remained in captivity. "Slave" is a racial epithet directed towards darker-skinned Sudanese. History of slavery in the Sudan Slavery in the region of the Sudan has a long history, beginning in the ancient Nubian and ancient Egyptian times and continuing up to the present. Prisoners of war were a regular occurrence in the ancient Nile Valley and Africa. During times of conquest and after winning battles, Egyptians were taken as slaves by the ancient Nubians. In turn, the ancient Nubians took slaves after winning battles with the Libyans, Canaanites, and Egyptians. Soon after the Arab conquest of Egypt, the Arabs attempted to conquer the kingdoms of Christian Nubia on multiple occasions, but utilizing strategic warfare, the significantly smaller Christian Nubia defeated the larger Arab forces. Eventually, given their unsuccessful efforts, the Arabs signed the 600-year Baqt treaty with the Christian Nubian kingdom of Makuria. As a part of the treaty, the Nubians, already involved in the burgeoning East African slave trade, agreed to trade 360