320,000 deaths are predicted in Sudan this year, a result of the government-authorized purge of all members of the Zaghawa, Masalit, and Fur tribes by an Arab militia called the Janjaweed. This may sound like genocide to you and me, but the Bush administration is still deciding whether this ethnically motivated mass murder and rape qualifies for that definition. Meanwhile, the world continues to turn its head while members of these tribes, located in the Darfur region, are being methodically slaughtered and their villages razed.New York Times op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof investigated and interviewed some of the victims, including Magboula Muhammed Khattar, a 24-year-old widow who also lost her parents and home to the raiders. The story he tells helps to translate numbing statistics into the personal reality that is the Darfur crisis. Should the U.S. and the rest of the international community intervene in what has already become an ethnic cleansing of grave proportions? One need only ask Ms. Khattar.
from Sojo.net
