Holocaust On People's Minds At Darfur Rally

WASHINGTON

In the words of Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, "for the sake of our humanity, save Darfur."

Wiesel was among the thousands who turned out in Washington Sunday to urge the Bush administration to help end the genocide in Sudan's Darfur region.

The crowd chanted, "Not on our watch" as speakers took turns on the National Mall.

Wiesel said while families are being uprooted and starved and children tormented and slaughtered, the world is "indifferent to their plight."

He said he won't remain silent because "silence helps the killer, never his victims." Read more >>>

Express your outrage about genocide

By TRUDY RUBIN

Today, the Save Darfur coalition will hold a mass rally in Washington to focus public outrage on the genocide in Darfur. But, although the rally will be large, it appears the numbers won't be sufficient to make a truly powerful statement -- unless more demonstrators travel to Washington at the last minute.

One has to ask: Why is there so little public passion about the massive Darfur killing? Read the full story >>>

A Loss of Hope Inside Darfur Refugee Camps

Over Two Years, a Genocide Comes Into View
By Emily Wax
Washington Post


NAIROBI -- On a stretch of the austere desert in Chad, just across the border from the Darfur region of Sudan, signs of tragedy came into full view: tattered clothing caught on the branches of thornbushes, carcasses of camels and goats that died on the long journey out.

Then the people began to appear: haggard young girls with siblings on their backs, old men riding atop donkeys piled high with cooking pots, water jugs and mats, and elderly grandmothers, some with gunshot wounds, being pushed through the sand in wheelbarrows. Read more >>>

U.N. Food Agency Cuts Rations in Darfur

By SAM CAGE

GENEVA Apr 28, 2006 (AP)— The U.N. food agency said Friday it is cutting rations in half for about 3 million refugees in Sudan's war-ravaged Darfur region because of a shortage of money, calling it "scandalous" that it has to stretch out supplies while it pleads for funds. Read more >>>

Act Now to Stop Genocide in Darfur, Sudan

Baltimore -- Lutheran World Relief joins more than 160 humanitarian agencies in the Save Darfur Coalition to co-sponsor the Rally to Stop Genocide in Washington, D.C. this Sunday, April 30 to draw attention to the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan. Concurrent rallies will be held in cities across the U.S.

“This genocide has been tragically under the radar screen for too long,” said LWR President Kathryn Wolford. “It’s time that we collectively raise our voices and insist on an end to the violence.” Read more >>>

Students travel to Capitol to protest genocide

By Aliza Appelbaum

More than 400,000 people have died in genocide in the Sudanese Darfur region. The violence between Arab Muslims and black Muslims has displaced another 2.5 million from their homes, forcing them to go without food, water or shelter for months. Read more >>>

Sudan: Government Offensive Threatens Darfur Civilians

By: Human Rights Watch


The Sudanese government has launched a new military offensive in South Darfur that is placing civilians at grave risk, Human Rights Watch said today.

An April 24 attack on a village in rebel-controlled territory used Antonov aircraft and helicopter gunships indiscriminately in violation of the laws of war, and displaced thousands of civilians who had sought safety there. The attack occurred just a week before an April 30 deadline for peace talks to end in Abuja, Nigeria. Two other villages in the area have also been attacked in the past 10 days. On April 25, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution placing four Sudanese individuals involved in the armed conflict on a sanctions list for international travel bans and asset freezes. Read more >>>

Darfur up close

Column by Nick Clooney

President Bush has called it genocide. Colin Powell has used the same word. Journalist Elizabeth Rubin described it as "slow-motion genocide." They are all talking about Darfur

Darfur is the westernmost region of Africa's largest nation, the Sudan. Darfur is also, by all accounts, the most miserable and dangerous place to live on the face of the planet. The full story >>>

UNICEF: Malnutrition Rising in Darfur

By ERICA BULMAN

GENEVA - Increased fighting, violence and a lack of funding are eroding progress in Darfur and malnutrition is on the rise again, the U.N. children‘s fund said Wednesday.

"We need to raise the alarm bell," said Ted Chaiban, head of UNICEF ‘s mission to Sudan. "We‘re losing ground. We need to stop this deterioration. Read more >>>

Darfur: Genocide Without Witnesses

By Jacky Mamou
Libération

Khartoum is deliberately hindering international humanitarian action.

While the international community commemorates the twelfth anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda - and, hand on heart, swears "Never again!" - murders, rapes, pillages and the forced displacement of black African populations, the Fur, Massalit, and Zaghawa, have continued for over three years in western Sudan. Read more >>>

Speaker recounts horrors of Darfur genocide

Eyewitness to Sudan conflict says U.S. should help region
Behnaz Abolmaali

A group of about 100 students heard first-hand accounts of rape, murder and torture in Darfur, Sudan, during a talk Friday by Brian Steidle, a former Marine captain and U.S. representative to the African Union's peacekeeping mission. Steidle presented photographs and poignant accounts of individuals caught in what he said is regarded as the worst humanitarian conflict today.

"I saw villages of up to 20,000 people burned to the ground. I saw government looting, burning," said Steidle, who is on a nationwide tour to speak about his experiences. "I saw people who had their ears cut off, their eyes plucked out, simply because of who they are." Read more >>>

Darfur on the brink

The United Nations Security Council was told last week that the humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region of the Sudan is growing worse because of government interference with the delivery of food and other aid. Yet two permanent members of the Security Council, Russia and China, have signaled opposition to using sanctions to change the behavior of the Sudanese government. If they carry out their veto threat, the consequences will be even more tragic. Read more >>>

Children's art gives insight into Darfur

Violence, warfare part of normal life
By Mike Dawson

The children in the Kalma displacement camp in Darfur know their shapes.

Triangles, for instance. Many can aptly draw one long narrow triangle then connect another to its wide end.

Add a bending rectangle to the bottom and you have an AK-47.

Looking through the dozens of crayon pictures drawn and colored by 25 children living in the Darfur camp, one is at once embraced by innocence and smacked with horror. The full story >>>

A voice against genocide

By KELLY ROUBA

PRINCETON BOROUGH -- In a photo captured by pediatrician Jerry Ehrlich while providing medical care in Darfur, Sudan, a 2-year-old boy lies on the ground. His eyes are sunken and every bone can be counted.

Once full of life, Ehrlich said the toddler had become so weak that all he could do was lie still. "His immune system is shot due to malnutrition. This is what happens to most of the kids in Darfur," Ehrlich said. Read more >>>

Will we watch as atrocities continue?

JONATHAN GURWITZ
"Every day our families are killed and raped. We are waiting for your help."

Maryam Adam a Darfur refugee

A great mystery of theology surrounds the parable of the good Samaritan.

As recounted in the Gospel of Luke, robbers attack a traveler on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho and leave him to die. A priest and then a member of the priestly class pass by the wounded traveler on the side of the road.

A Samaritan - a foreigner - stops and renders aid, bandaging his wounds and taking on the expense of sheltering and caring for the victim.

What would the Samaritan have done if he arrived as the robbers were attacking the traveler, not afterward? How you answer that question will indicate quite a bit about your view of the world - about whether we who are fortunate to live in peace and tranquility should simply pass down the other side of the road as horrific events transpire.

With regard to Darfur, this is more than a fanciful inquiry. A genocidal campaign by the government of Sudan against black Africans in the western part of the country has, over two years, taken as many as 400,000 lives and created more than 2 million refugees. The atrocities committed by the Sudanese military and its Janjaweed allies defy comprehension: torture and execution of civilians, castration of men, rape of women and girls, all on a massive scale. The full story >>>

Holocaust tribute to focus on Darfur

GRAHAM FRASER
NATIONAL AFFAIRS WRITER


The phrase "never again," long applied to the commemoration of the Holocaust, is taking on new meaning. Today, thousands of green ribbons will be given to federal and provincial legislators to be worn Tuesday to draw attention to massacres in Darfur. Read more >>>

As the genocide in Darfur goes on, chaos and killing spread to Sudan's neighbours

By Anne Penketh, Diplomatic Editor

It has been called a genocide in slow motion, its gruesome details unfolding while the world looks the other way. And it is spreading.

There are pictures, there are witness accounts, there are the Western visitors who go home with harrowing tales of rape, scorched earth and horseback attacks on helpless villagers. The entire story >>>

Darfur crisis is 'as bad as ever'

The humanitarian situation in Sudan's Darfur region is as bad now as....

Jan Egeland told the BBC that aid workers in Darfur were "in retreat" from attacks by armed groups, a funding shortfall and government obstacles.

He said that 500,000 people of the 3m who needed help were "out of reach".

The US says a genocide is being committed against Darfur's black African population. Read more >>>

Darfur 'too deadly for aid work'

Fighting has made it impossible to reach large areas of the Sudanese region of Darfur, the Red Cross says.
International Committee of the Red Cross Sudan spokesman Paul Conneally told the BBC that its vehicles are being systematically looted.

He said tens of thousands of people had been forced from their homes around the rebel bases in the Marra mountains.

Aid workers are trying to help more than two million people, in what the US says is a genocide. The full story >>>

'Time is running out for Darfur'

BY TIM LOUIS MACALUSO

Mohamed Yahya doesn't know if his parents are still alive. While he was attending school in Cairo, his village in Darfur --- Koka --- was repeatedly attacked by the Arab militia operating in Sudan. Read more >>>

Posturing on Genocide in Darfur and Eastern Chad

The UN Takes Its Turn at Posturing on Genocide in Darfur and Eastern Chad
Posted by: ereeves

US and Britain offer a token Security Council sanctions resolution, which is promptly rejected by China, Russia, and Qatar
The international community seems to have an inexhaustible capacity for disingenuousness, expediency, and bad faith in responding to resurgent genocide in Darfur and eastern Chad. Even as all humanitarian indicators strongly suggest that human mortality and displacement are rapidly accelerating, there is no action in prospect---diplomatic or military---that might address the acute insecurity that threatens civilians and continues to attenuate humanitarian capacity and operations. This growing insecurity ensures that the deaths of huge numbers of innocent children, women, and men will continue through the coming rainy season and hunger gap (May through September)---and well beyond. The full story >>>

Darfur Gets More Violent

The number of "no go" areas in Darfur ("no go" due to violence) has increased since December 2005. The current situation appears as bad as it was two years ago. The government denies this is the situation. From the Sudanese perspective, these complaints are part of an organized political drive to put the UN in charge of the current (failing) African Union-led peacekeeping effort. However, since mid-2003, the most trusted reports have come from NGO aid groups and UN observers in Darfur. Read more >>>

Bush is right: Darfur genocide must be stopped

By NAT HENTOFF

On March 25, at Freedom House in Washington, D.C., George W. Bush -- who has been more outspoken on the mass murders in Darfur than any world leader -- said: "When we say genocide, we mean genocide must be stopped!" The African Union's small force, he added, is not enough. "There should be a NATO overlay" of support. Read more >>>

The World And Darfur

On March 25 at a speech at Freedom House, President George Bush became the only world leader to state plainly that the atrocities in Darfur amount to genocide.

He then said it must be stopped and proposed allowing NATO to help support the African Union’s small force there.
Since that time, the world, the United Nations, the Muslim nations and the African nations have done … nothing.

In fact, a few days after the president’s speech, NATO head Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said that "Africans feel very strongly" that they should take care of problems on their own continent. So, he added, one "should be careful" about imposing oneself on them. "There is not yet the need for declaring a willingness for [NATO] to participate."

No doubt Africans should take care of their own problems but, as columnist Nat Hentoff notes, more than 300,000 Darfur Africans have been killed in the conflict and more than 2 million displaced, so there does appear to be something lacking in the African response. Read more >>>

The world fails to act on another slaughter

But the same nightmare of genocide that descended upon Rwanda has now come to the Darfur region of Sudan -- and the world's response is exactly the same as it was 12 years ago: silence, foot-dragging and stunning ineptitude. More than 400,000 people -- about the population of Oakland -- have died so far. The dithering continues, even as Darfur chokes on its own blood. It almost feels like the United Nations and the great Western powers are waiting for the granite memorials to go up and the Sudanese national holidays to be established before they demonstrate that the routine slaughter of innocent people in Africa is an issue worth caring about. Read more >>>

Genocide in Sudan begs for attention

Tim Nonn

I used to be a dedicated bystander. Whenever I caught a glimpse in the media of the genocide in Sudan, I turned away.

One night, I stopped -- and heard the story of a young Sudanese mother who had walked for days through the desert with her children until they reached the safety of a refugee camp. Her village had been destroyed and her husband killed by government-sponsored militia. She saved her children, and changed my life.

I asked my church to contribute funds for the refugees in Darfur. A few months later, my tranquil existence as a husband, father and editor of technical journals was turned upside-down when I was asked by national church leaders to form a grassroots interfaith campaign called Dear Sudan. Our goal, as part of a larger movement, is to stop the genocide. Read more >>>

Darfur's children deserve our protection

By William Hague

We've seen the evidence of ethnic cleansing. We must act now or be condemned for our inhumanity

'We send our grandmothers to collect the firewood. We know they will be beaten. But we have no choice; if we send our men, they will kill them. If we send our women or our girls, they will rape them.' I could see the bitterness and despair on the young woman's face as she described the cruel choice that her family is forced to make every day. We were standing in Abu Shouk displaced persons' camp in Darfur, Sudan, in front of the flimsy tent that she called home. The full story >>>

Darfur Video Diary by shadow foreign secretary William Hague

William Hague's
Three years of conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan has created one of the worst humanitarian crises the world has seen. Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague has visited the area with the charity Oxfam. Watch the video diary for Sky News >>>

Bush Administration Darfur Policy: Incompetence or Disingenuousness?

Eric Reeves


The Washington Post editorial (full text of this important statement at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/10/AR2006041001535.html) has asked the essential question of the Bush administration; tragically, the preponderance of evidence suggests that “two-faced” and disingenuous is the better description. What follows from this ugly reality is a lack of meaningful US policy for Darfur and eastern Chad, with the bleak diplomatic prospect that US leadership will be lacking as the Darfur region enters its period of greatest and most remorseless human destruction. Despite various posturing comments by Mr. Bush about a significant NATO role in Darfur (“NATO stewardship” was his phrase in February), statements from senior NATO officials in Brussels indicate that the role of the Alliance will in fact be highly limited. It is all too clear that senior Bush administration officials, at both the State Department and Pentagon, have failed to communicate effectively with NATO allies in Brussels, leaving a gaping disparity in public statements. The Bush administration has not invested the political and diplomatic capital necessary to sway the Alliance, which moves by notoriously slow consensus. Read more >>>

In the dark on Darfur

Black leaders need to shine a light -- and raise a ruckus

The situation in the Sudanese region of Darfur, where more than 2 million people have been displaced due to violence and some 400,000 have thus far died, forces us to look at the lack of interest or discussion of an ongoing genocidal operation imposed on black Africans by Arab Muslims.
Our civil rights establishment, which might have shouted itself hoarse, has been remarkably quiet, or at least they have made very little noise of the sort that draws a crowd of people from the media. Fore more >>>

While Darfur burns

It is enormously distressing to watch the sausage-making that passes for the world's attempt to do something about the carnage in Darfur.
The United Nations is still dawdling over plans to replace the African Union force currently there with a well-armed UN peacekeeping force. An attempt last week by the United Nations' top official on humanitarian issues, Jan Egeland, to visit Darfur was rebuffed by the Sudanese government. The full story >>>

Violations of African Union troops in Darfur

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/253272944?ltl=1143819150

Putting an end to Darfur genocide

Brian Steidle has seen it all: Bayonets used like toothpicks to pluck up babies; villages torched; people maimed; women and girls who have been raped; children who are orphaned. The former Marine captain spent six months in Darfur in the west of Sudan with an African Union peacekeeping mission, monitoring the genocide taking place there because Arab raiders, called janjaweed and supported by the Sudanese army, are victimizing black Darfurians.

Now Steidle is spreading word about his experiences there and trying to create awareness and demand that the world do something about it. Read the full editorial >>>

Darfur crisis intensifies

New York

Efforts to stop atrocities in Sudan's Darfur region are unravelling, with a new peacekeeping force uncertain, relief aid under attack and UN sanctions stymied, UN officials and analysts say.

"The situation is spiralling downward on the ground and retreating backwards on a daily basis in New York, Washington and Brussels," home of Nato, said John Prendergast of the International Crisis Group think-tank.

"A fragile consensus has collapsed under the weight of the Sudan government's artful diplomacy campaign," Prendergast told Reuters.

"It played chicken with the broad international community, and once again the international community drove off the road."

The main bulwark against abuses is the cash-strapped African Union which, under pressure from its Arab members who often side with Khartoum, is hesitating to merge its 7 000 troops with a UN force. The full story >>>

Ending Genocide in Darfur

Editorial

A time for quick actionEnding genocide requires more than slow-motion intervention. The United States and the United Nations must act much more aggressively and quickly to protect civilians trying to escape violence in Sudan's Darfur region.

The U.S. government has labeled the violence in Darfur, which began in 2003, as genocide. That's appropriate: The militias that have been trying to erase the population there are backed by the government in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum.

Sudan's president, Omar el-Bashir, responds to such charges with a "Me? No, never." But then government helicopters buzz overhead to strafe villages and camps for the displaced, who number 2.5 million. Read more >>>

Darfur violence crosses border into Chad

By Shashank Bengali
JANJAWEED ARE FREE TO RAID AND ATTACK REFUGEES, CIVILIANS


The war in Sudan's Darfur region, where more than 200,000 people have been killed in what the Bush administration calls genocide, is growing deadlier and more complicated.

Since the beginning of the year, militias backed by the Sudanese government are crossing over almost daily into neighboring Chad and freely attacking Darfur refugees and Chadian civilians in villages along the lengthy, desolate border. Read more >>>

Rescuing Darfur

By Juan E. Mendez

Twelve years ago this month, Rwanda experienced some of the most brutal crimes in memory. Up to 1 million persons were massacred, literally butchered with machetes, for merely being ethnic Tutsis or Hutu political moderates.
As images of mutilated bodies beamed across the globe, the international community stood idle. As we reflect on the lessons of that horrific episode, we must renew our commitment to take bold, decisive measures to ensure genocide does not take place in our times. We cannot claim to have learned the lessons of the 1994 Rwandan genocide if our action in the face of genocidal violence remains half-hearted.
Action is particularly needed in Darfur, where the threat of genocide continues to loom large. For more >>>

World fails in finding lasting solution to Darfur crisis: UN

NAIROBI, April 7 (Xinhua) -- A top United Nations relief official said on Friday the world has failed to provide a lasting solution to the crisis in Sudan's volatile region of Darfur where a three-year fighting has killed thousands of people and displaced million others.

Addressing a news conference in Nairobi, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland said the world has failed to put pressure on Khartoum and rebels to reach a solution at the negotiation process. For the full story >>>

End slaughter in Darfur: The United States must lead in halting genocide

The United Nations calls Darfur the "worst humanitarian crisis in the world," and for good reason.

Three years ago, Sudan began massacring ethnic African villagers in its western region of Darfur. As many as 400,000 people have died so far of murder, starvation and disease. Another 2.2 million have become refugees and are teetering on the brink of extermination. For more >>>

The catastrophe in Darfur

By: Ailise McMahon

The United Nations's top humanitarian official in Sudan, Jan Egeland, was prevented from entering Darfur on Monday. He told The New York Times, "[The Sudanese government] said I'm not welcome ... My interpretation is that they don't want me to see what I was planning to witness in South and West Darfur, which is renewed attacks on the civilian population." Read more >>>

Khartoum Sharply Accelerates War on Humanitarian Aid in Darfur

Eric Reeves

Hundreds of thousands of civilians are directly threatened with genocidal destruction by the National Islamic Front

Jan Egeland, the UN’s chief humanitarian official, was this week brazenly and contemptuously denied access to Darfur by leaders of Khartoum’s National Islamic Front (“National Congress Party”). Not only was Egeland refused entry to South Darfur and West Darfur, but he was informed through the NIF’s UN mission in New York that he “would not be welcome in Khartoum.” As if to underscore their contempt for UN humanitarian operations, Khartoum’s genocidaires the next day denied Egeland use of Sudanese air-space as he sought to travel to Chad to see Darfuri refugees and the rapidly deteriorating conditions along the Darfur/Chad border. The full story >>>

Sudan: UN Concerned for 90,000 Displaced People After Aid Group Asked to Leave

UN News Service (New York)

Living conditions for 90,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the conflict ridden Darfur region of Sudan are likely to get worse after Sudanese authorities asked the Norwegian non-governmental organization that was coordinating the largest IDP camp to leave, the top United Nations relief official said today, just a few days after authorities banned him from visiting the impoverished region.
For more >>>

U.N. envoy: Crisis in Darfur getting worse

Fox News and Associated Press

NAIROBI, Kenya — The conflict in Sudan's western Darfur region has worsened, with 200,000 additional people being forced from their homes, a top U.N. envoy barred from visiting the zone by Sudanese authorities said Tuesday.

Jan Egeland, U.N. under-secretary-general for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief, said Sudanese government officials had denied his U.N. aircraft permission to overfly Darfur in order to visit Sudanese refugees in neighboring Chad. A day earlier, they had barred him from visiting the capital, Khartoum, and the Darfur region. Read more >>>

Violations of African Union troops in Darfur

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/253272944?ltl=1143819150

Holocaust in Plain Sight

by Nat Hentoff

[U.N.] official Jan Pronk told the Security Council that killings, rapes and armed attacks on Darfur villagers [are being] committed by armed gangs secure in the knowledge that no one would stop or punish them.
New York Times, March 22

Long before the genocide in Sudan, I had been reporting for years in the Voice on the Sudan government's murders, gang rapes, and enslavement of black Christians and animists in the south of Sudan—and the attempts of the Boston-based American Anti-Slavery Group, black American pastors, Christian Solidarity International, and a few members of Congress to awaken this country to the horrors in Sudan. Read more >>>

Gridlock on Genocide

by J. Carter Johnson
Pressure on Sudan mounts, but the killing continues in Darfur.

In Darfur, the desert of western Sudan, hideous genocide continues. A developing coalition that crosses the religious and political spectrum has lobbied hard for government bureaucracies to take action. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., recently returned from a visit to the devastated region. Still, it remains to be seen whether anyone can coax Sudan's government to stop the mass rape and murder. Read more >>>

UN's Egeland says Sudan stops him going to Darfur

By Opheera McDoom

RUMBEK, Sudan, April 3 (Reuters) - The U.N.'s top humanitarian official in Sudan Jan Egeland said the government barred him on Monday from visiting Darfur to prevent him seeing poor conditions there.

The apparent snub comes as Sudan is under international pressure over violence in Darfur that has made aid deliveries impossible in large parts of its vast western region.

"I've been barred from going to south Darfur, west Darfur and also I have been told that I am not welcome in Khartoum," Egeland, U.N. under-secretary for humanitarian affairs, told Reuters during a visit to southern Sudan. For more click here >>>

Former U.S. Marine seeks end to genocide in Darfur

By Jamie Ward

Former Marine Brian Steidle shows pictures that he took while stationed in Darfur to students in the business school Thursday night.
Yossi May • IDS
Former Marine Brian Steidle spoke of an ongoing "systematic ethnic cleansing" he witnessed in Darfur, a region in Sudan, while touring Bloomington Thursday and Friday. The events were part of the "Million Voices for Darfur" campaign.

"This is a government-sponsored military operation," Steidle said. "At its height, 9,000 to 10,000 people have died in a month and there are now nearly 2.5 to 3 million people in internally displaced persons camps. It's going on right now as we sit in this room. People are dying." Read more >>>

Violations of African Union troops in Darfur

Allegations of sexual abuses, by those who are supposed to curb sexual crimes, should not be left unaccounted for.

Please listen to the silent horrors unheard by many in the following link:

http://www.channel4.com/player/playerwindow.html?id=3979&vert=news

Whatever has been done to alleviate the suffering of the innocent is highly appreciated and the least to be done is to sign the petition in the following link:

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/253272944?ltl=1143972683

Sudan tragedy needs action

The tragedy in the Sudan is overwhelming. In three years, 300,000 people have been killed; more than 2 million people have been displaced. Rapes and mutilations occur daily. The United Nations describes it as the world's worst humanitarian disaster and the United States has gone so far as labeling the situation in Darfur "genocide."

Yet, little is officially being done to right the wrongs, and grassroots efforts coordinated by frustrated citizens are sprouting up.

In Poughkeepsie, Diane Browne-Sterdt, like many people throughout the country, is increasingly appalled about the atrocities occurring in the western region of the Sudan, especially after having seen the movie "Hotel Rwanda." Read the full story >>>

Darfur: A peaceful option

By Kofi A. Annan
Alpha Oumar Konare


While no one knows for sure how many people have died in the conflict in Darfur, western Sudan, more than 2.6 million are suffering because of it, and urgently need assistance.

Villages have been burnt, crops uprooted, men murdered, women raped, children abducted. And 1.9 million people have been displaced from their homes within Sudanese territory. Others are still at home but prevented from planting the crops on which their lives depend. If food does not soon reach them, they too will be forced to go search of it, swelling already overcrowded camps. For more >>>>