We often don't realise quite how much our view of humanitarian crises is shaped by western journalists and the aid agencies that feed them information. Even worthy causes such as the suffering in Darfur become embroiled in stereotypes of victimhood and the iconography of celebrity endorsement.

As Hugo Slim points out in his lastest AlertNet blog, international non-governmental organisations are "intercultural gatekeepers" between the West and the wider world of the poor and disenfranchised.

"They know both worlds and report the one to the other," he writes.

So it comes, paradoxically, both as a relief and a shock when we get to witness these realities in an unmediated form. "Jihad on Horseback", a documentary on Darfur made by the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya satellite TV channel, affords one such opportunity.

The film contains direct testimonies from Darfur refugees languishing in camps in Chad and Sudan, as well as shocking footage of destroyed villages and Janjaweed militiamen. There is even a chilling clip of radio traffic between air force pilots and gunmen on the ground, coordinating attacks on villages.

It's raw stuff. One woman describes how she was raped in front of her children. Two of them were then killed in front of her. Another woman weeps uncontrollably as she talks about watching her brother being murdered.

There's always a fine line between public interest and unhealthy intrusion when it comes to personal tragedies of this magnitude. Does it serve the interests of the interviewees to revisit these experiences for the benefit of film-makers? It's impossible to say for sure.

But there is a dignified and sensitive detachment to the way this Arabic-language film has been made. The victims of these outrages speak for themselves, directly to the viewer, a rare experience in these days of multi-media fundraising campaigns.

According to Naomi Sakr of the University of Westminster, the documentary was pulled from public broadcast in the Middle East after the President of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, telephoned the King of Saudi Arabia to complain.

This is testament, in a way, to an important piece of journalism, which also includes interviews with government leaders and militia members in Khartoum. "There is no such thing as genocide, even what is happening now," says one. It is a simple statement, but set against the accounts of murder, rape and systematic brutalisation, it packs a heavy punch.

The political philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote of the "banality of evil" after witnessing the trial of Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1967. Forty years later, "Jihad on Horseback" makes much the same point about 21st century Sudan. The world's most unspeakable crimes are - often as not - perpetrated by the most mediocre of men.

To watch the film online, go to Section 5 of the International Crisis Group's "Crisis in Darfur" page.

You might also be interested in reading about "The Devil Came on Horseback", another documentary film on Darfur, which has been showing at the Tribeca Film Festival.

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