Sudan

Sudan is in the midst of a catastrophic humanitarian crisis. Currently, a brutal system of ethnic cleansing is being practiced against the Black people of Darfur, located in the western region of Sudan. Arab militiamen, known as the Janjaweed, are the main cause of these horrific conditions.

"So many men have been killed. I and another woman buried seven men. We put the bodies we could not bury in a shelter, but the Janjaweed returned in the night and burnt the shelter and the bodies, a woman described to Amnesty International delegates after her village was attacked by the militia.

According to a September 13 report by the U.N. Health Organization and the Sudanese Ministry of Health, the mortality rate for children under five years of age is significantly higher than the emergency thresholds. Also, for people aged 15-49, 40% of deaths were a result of violence.

The crisis came to a head in February 2003. The Sudan Liberation Army/Movement (SLA/M) and the Justice for Equality Movement (JEM) draw their members from ethnic groups, like the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa. Demanding an end to economic disenfranchisement, these two organizations petitioned the government to halt the abuses they suffered under the Arab pastoralists who were taking over their farmlands; the same lands that were already ravaged by desertification and drought.

The Arabic Janjaweed is traditionally a nomadic group of armed militias. The government has not intervened, despite mild international pressure. As a result, the Janjaweed has terrorized the Darfur region by raping women, burning villages, killing Muslim religious leaders, destroying mosques, ruining food stocks, and murdering men women and children alike.

The situation has resulted in over one million Black Sudanese fleeing the Darfur region, their homeland. Unfortunately, the nearly two-year-old crisis will see no end in the near future. Peace talks have failed and the Sudanese government has refused to allow any outside forces to intervene.

The conflict in the Dafur region of Sudan has finally received concern at a worldwide level, after the U.S. Secretary of State and the General Secretary of the United Nations visited the sites of intense violence last week. However, even before the two heads made their trips, Christian humanitarians agencies have noted the signs of ethnic cleansing and "mysterious disappearances" of a whole people-group, and have rallied support to relieve "the world's largest humanitarian crises."

"It's tragically ironic," comments CWS Executive Director and CEO Rev. John L. McCullough, "that we celebrated our own Independence Day in the United States over the weekend, as more than a million people in one region of one country are either dead,

uprooted, victims of violence, homeless, suffering, and starving."

McCullough, in reference to the U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's visit, said he hopes the official would not underestimate the extent of the damage in the war-torn nation.

"We hope that Colin Powell was not misled by what reports indicate were a judiciously guided tour of Abu Shouk, one of the better assisted IDP camps in the region," McCullough.

In noting the events of the Mestel camp, where an estimated one thousand residents were "emptied overnight" just before the U.N. General Secretary Kofi Annan's visited, McCullough said, "We also hope that Mr. Annan will continue to pursue the truth in Darfur and not be daunted by visits to camps that have quickly and mysteriously been emptied of their inhabitants."

Following their early July trips both Powell and Annan pressured the Sudanese government to stop the genocide and prevent starvation and disease on a massive scale.

Meanwhile, CWS reported that it has issued a $1.75 million fundraising appeal to provide assistance to those afflicted in the impoverished nation. CWS also announced, on July 8, of the launching of a nationwide direct mail campaign targeted at grassroots, faith community and government levels.

CWS has members on the ground, along with UN AID agencies and World Relief.

As many as 30,000 people have died in the past 16 months in the Sudanese violence, and more than 130,000 of these people fled into neighboring Chad.

World Relief, the humanitarian arm of the National Association of Evangelicals, said it is responding to the dire situation through its partnership with the Evangelical Alliance in Chad. Chadian villagers have been bringing food and water to the Sudanese refugees, and with the help of World Relief, the chadian church partners have already begun "camp construction projects" to build wells, water and sanitation outlets and tents.

However, World Relief noted that the Chadians, who live in straw huts and mud houses, are "reaching their limits" and that "the rainy season is about to begin and the plight of families is only expected to get worse."

The Darfur Crisis...

The conflict in Darfur began in February 2003 when two rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rose against government military installations in the region in retaliation for economic and political marginalization. They also accused the government of arming the Arab militias, called the Janjaweed, to drive out African farmers from their lands in a campaign of ethnic cleansing which the US congress has now called a "genocide."

Indiscriminate killing, mass rapes, looting of livestock and the burning of villages at the hands of government troops and the militias have resulted in 50,000 deaths and forced an estimated 1.2 million people from their homes. The majority of these people are in poorly run government-controlled Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps within Darfur, where they remain vulnerable to further attacks by the Janjaweed and have limited access to relief supplies.

More than 170,000 Sudanese have fled across the border to neighboring Chad where they wait in makeshift shelters for international aid agencies to transport them to refugee camps away from the volatile Chad/Darfur border. This process has been hindered by the heavy rains and floods which make roads virtually impossible to use. The rain and sandstorms have also made it difficult for aid agencies to reach the refugee camps with vital supplies; overcrowding, food shortages and outbreaks of disease have further worsened the refugee