More nations need to help ease slaughter in Darfur

The crisis playing out in Darfur is one of the greatest human tragedies of our time. More than 200,000 innocent people have been murdered and nearly 2.5 million have been driven from their villages and separated from their families.

As a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, I recently traveled to Darfur to assess the extent of the crisis and the role that the United States is playing in alleviating it. I was accompanied on this fact-finding mission by two other members of Congress, Reps. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas) and Adrian Smith (R-Neb.).

From the capital city of Khartoum, we traveled aboard a humanitarian flight to Abu Shouk, a refugee camp in northern Darfur. Abu Shouk is one of the largest refugee camps in Sudan, accommodating more than 54,000 displaced persons. There, we heard personal accounts of the brutality and violence suffered by these innocent people.


Most of the refugees were driven from their homes when their villages were attacked by Sudanese planes or helicopters, followed within hours by Arab militias - known as the Janjaweed - who swept into the villages on horses and camels, killing, raping and pillaging. Those fortunate enough to have survived fled to camps such as Abu Shouk, or across the border into the neighboring country of Chad.

The refugees we spoke with described harrowing experiences of escape from the Janjaweed. Yet, even in the refugee camps, women and children do not feel safe. Children are awakened at night by gunfire. Women are particularly vulnerable when they leave the camp to gather firewood for their families. The Janjaweed lurk in the countryside, making abduction and rape a real and constant threat. Read more >>>>>>>>>