Genocide should be one of those issues being covered 24/7 in the media. Churches should be praying about it every Sunday and organizing relief efforts. Our politicians should be reaching a bi-partisan consensus to rally the world to intervene. Instead we ignore the genocide taking place in Darfur.
Somewhere around 293,000 people have been killed so far. "The Sudanese Government, using Arab ‘Janjaweed’ militias, its air force, and organized starvation, is deliberately and systematically killing the black Sudanese of Darfur,” reports darfurgenocide.org.
What if these were white Christians being slaughtered in Europe? Would our response be different? I’d bet money it would.
Here’s the latest report:
Though it has been apparent for the past two months that disintegration of the nominal cease-fire in Darfur was accelerating, very recent reports make clear that a dramatic security crisis has been precipitated by a rapid increase in violence, intimidation, and forced expulsions from camps for the displaced. Today, in an extraordinarily threatening development reported by Reuters and Associated Press, Khartoum's military and police forces have surrounded and cut off several of the largest camps in West and South Darfur, which serve many tens of thousands of internally displaced persons. This follows an earlier decision by aid agencies to evacuate workers from two camps following violent incidents: "More than 20 aid workers left the town of Zalengei by helicopter on Sunday while aid workers were also evacuated from the town of Nertiti, also in western Darfur." (BBC, November 1, 2004)
Today the reports are considerably more alarming:
"The Sudanese army and police have surrounded several refugee camps in the war-torn region of Darfur and denied access to humanitarian groups, the United Nations said Tuesday. 'It started at 3 a.m. without any warning,' said Christiane Berthiaume, spokeswoman for the World Food Program. 'Agencies have been denied access to these camps since this morning [November 2, 2004].'
At least 160,000 refugees in western Darfur cannot be reached by road 'because of insecurity.'" "The UN food agency has relocated a total of 88 aid workers from three camps in [West Darfur]: Golu, Zaleinge and Nertetie. [ ] WFP is concerned that government forces may start relocating people in the camps back to their villages, where there is less protection from government-backed militias known as Janjaweed." (Associated Press, November 2, 2004)
This is just a sample of the chaos taking place. Click here for more news.
The Save Darfur Coalition has ideas on how individuals can help on their web site. Make sure you visit. You’ll learn how one person might really make a difference in drawing attention to this crisis.
