African awareness series part 2

Every day anywhere from 100 to 500 people die in Darfur, Sudan. Women and girls are kidnapped, raped and forced to be sex slaves. Men are tortured, sometimes castrated, then executed. Villages burn to the ground, crops destroyed and people are slaughtered en masse.

This is the reality of the millions we ignore in Darfur.

The Janjaweed, a Sudanese government supported militia, targets African civilians, raids villages and terrorizes its inhabitants. Houses are looted and set afire, some with the residents locked inside. Utilizing a campaign of fear, the militia massacres as many people as possible, and brands terror into the minds of survivors and nearby villagers, soon to be the next victims.

The lucky are able to flee to the drought-stricken desert where they will live in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps which lack vital necessities such as sufficient food and clean water.

Much of the water available is contaminated, resulting in widespread disease such as hepatitis A, dysentery and cholera. The population, already malnourished, is highly susceptible to the measles, polio and meningitis, without access to an adequate amount of vaccines and medicines.

Living in the camps, people have to wander through the desert to find sticks and plastic bags that may be used to construct shanty huts, their only form of shelter. The majority of the camp population are women and children because many of the men have been killed in village attacks.

Irrespective of the risk of rape and abduction, women must go search for firewood and water.

Women are not much safer in IDP camps, many of them are raped within the confines of the allegedly safe area. All who fearfully inhabit the camps are still vulnerable to kidnappings and attacks by the Janjaweed no matter how secure the camp walls claim to be.

Of the 3.5 million victims affected, as of yet, approximately 1.4 million are children, with almost half of them being under the age of 5. Many are orphaned, stripped of their youth, and are left to construct their own images of peace and family from what they remember of their homes.

While we complain about the price of gas or traffic, this is what the lives and concerns of others are. A sense of apathy, more disgustingly an aversion to seek knowledge on such horrid occurrences has plagued many, leaving the men, women and children of Darfur to suffer and die with relatively little notice from the American public.

Because we are fortunate enough to live in a nation where this is not a concern of ours, we must do what we can to help. Raise awareness, make a donation, sign a petition or write your congressman, do what you can within your means, it takes nothing more than effort.

We have seen the devastation of genocide, the Holocaust and the Rwanda Genocide being two recent and tragic examples. History is being authored in this very moment, and we can not stand aside and watch as the people of Darfur experience extermination in escalating amounts, we must make a difference and stop the inhumanity.