Darfur

“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”
-Mother Teresa

I found some pictures drawn by children from Darfur, and they really affected me, so I wanted to share a few. Without much adieu:

Abd al-Rahman, Age 13
“I am looking at the sheep in the wadi [riverbed, or oasis]. I see Janjaweed coming—quickly, on horses and camels, with Kalashnikovs—shooting and yelling, ‘kill the slaves, kill the blacks.’ They killed many of the men with the animals. I saw people falling on the ground and bleeding. They chased after children. Some of us were taken, some we didn’t see again. All our animals were taken: camels, cows, sheep, and goats. Then the planes came and bombed the village.”

Taha, Age 13 or 14
“In the afternoon we returned from school and saw the planes. We were all looking, not imagining about bombing. Then they began the bombing. The first bomb [landed] in our garden, then four bombs at once in the garden. The bombs killed six people, including a young boy, a boy carried by his mother, and a girl. In another place in the garden a women was carrying her baby son—she was killed, not him. Now my nights are hard because I feel frightened. We became homeless. I cannot forget the bad images of the burning houses and fleeing at night because our village was burned…”

Doa‘, Age 11 or 12
Janjaweed descend on a village on horses and camels, a woman flings her arms in the air as she is targeted for sexual violence or execution. A soldier takes a woman to be raped. She has a cell phone next to her head: “She wants to call the agencies for help.”

Salah, Age 13
“There were soldiers from Sudan, Janjaweed, and planes and bombs. I saw the Janjaweed take girls and women. The women were screaming. They seized them, they took them by force. The pretty ones were taken away…Girls were taken, small girls too, I think 5 and 7 and 14. Some came back after four or five hours…some we haven’t seen again.”

Magda, Age 9
“We were running from the burning houses. Janjaweed and soldiers with guns and planes and bombs came, all together, quickly. They were shooting…my uncle was shot. I saw them taking women and girls away. All of us—my family—we were screaming and running from the Janjaweed to hide in the wadi [riverbed or oasis]…holding each other by the arms to keep together. Here in camp we are safe, but my father…he was lost.”

Ala‘, Age 13
Like many other children, Ala‘ witnessed conflict between rebel groups and the Janjaweed. This drawing depicts a rebel soldier first shot in the arm, then executed by gunshots to the groin. Ali, a teacher in a refugee camp, said the rebels are killed this way to emasculate them. “They [the Janjaweed] know what they are doing,” he said. “They are doing it with purpose.”

You can view more drawings here

Indeed, the irony became savage today when Annan went on to invoke Edmund Burke’s famous declaration, “all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” For “nothing” is precisely what Annan and the US administration of Bill Clinton engineered in response to the desperate plea for intervening troops from Lt. General Romeo Dallaire, UN force commander at the time of the genocide in Rwanda.

Moreover, “nothing” also comes perilously close to defining what the international community is providing in the way of means for halting current genocide in Darfur…

It is incredible to me that what is happening in Darfur is happening.  It’s shocking to me that I don’t remember reading anything about it in the paper the past couple of days…. not even in the back pages!  I mean, this is genocide!  What’s even scarier is that it’s not the first time something like this has happened, and not the first time we have turned our backs.  I’d have thought we’d of known better by now. It’s a commonly held belief that things have to effect us before we can effect them… but why?  It makes sense, but I don’t understand it!  It’s so confusing to me, and its not fun to think about, but it tears me up.  Everything I do seems senseless in the face of these horrible things.  I’m really confused, nothing makes sense right now, so I’m going to stop writing.  Here are some links to some interesting sites, some regarding Darfur, some not:

• http://savoheleta.livejournal.com
• http://coalitionfordarfur.blogspot.com/2005/08/genocide-and-statistics.html
• http://hrw.org/doc?t=africa&c=darfur
• http://www.passionofthepresent.org/
• http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3496731.stm
• http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/mar/14/comment.sudan
• http://www.americanthinker.com/2006/12/how_the_media_and_the_left_hav.html
• http://www.amnestyusa.org/Darfur/Reports_and_Background/page.do?id=1041056&n1=3&n2=52&n3=1172

Although statistics are hard to track or validate in Darfur, here are some general ideas:

• The conflict has affected more than 2.6 million people in Darfur and Eastern Chad (US Govt., UE, UN)
• 1.85 million people are displaced within Darfur (UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs)
• 15,000 people die each month (International Coalition for Justice)
• 200,000 have fled to refugee camps in neighboring Chad (UN High Commissioner for Refugees)
• More than 20% of children under five years old are suffering from severe malnutrition and many are dying each day (UN World Food Program)
• Only 50% of persons in need are receiving food assistance (UN World Food Program)
• In March 2005, UN Undersecretary-General Jan Egeland, warned that as many as 3 to 4 million people could need food aid in the coming months.
• In April 2005, the World Food Program announced that a drastic funding shortfall would force them to cut food rations by one-half for one million Darfurians.