MiaFarrow.org

 Humanitarian and Advocacy Information

mia farrow

mia farrow's images on flickr

|    DARFUR ARCHIVES
|    PHOTOS     
|    LINKS     
|    EDITORIALS     
|    WHAT YOU CAN DO     
|    DIVESTING
|    FEATURES     
|    JOINT STATEMENT         
|    VIDEOS
|    POWERPOINT

Follow Mia's blog
Click here to see my photo journal from Central African Republic and Chad
Read "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" by Ursula K. Le Guin
View a timeline of events in the humanitarian crisis in Darfur
 

Archives

« Newer Posts | Older Posts »

March 31, 2011

Ronan Farrow - DipNote : US Department of State Official Blog
Empowering Youth To Be Agents of Change. Posted by Ronan Farrow / March 30, 2011 . Young people are reflected in river while youth is seen crossing it in ...
blogs.state.gov/index.php/site/by_author/ronanfarrow/
 
 

CRS resumed food distributions after outrageous suspension imposed by Khartoum -For 2 months thousands of vulnerable people were deprived of food, clean water, shelter
On Wednesday March 30, Catholic Relief Services resumed food distributions after a two-month suspension in West Darfur. More than 22,900 people in four different locations received a two-month supply of food.   CRS is a great org. On average they serve more than 500,000 people in West Darfur each year.
http://crs-blog.org/crs-resumes-food-darfur-food-distribution/
 
 
March 28, 2011

Here is John Prendergast's and my op-ed with my video from Abyei on Huffington Post:


 
 
March 27, 2011

Expulsion of Catholic Relief Services leaves 400,000 without food, shelter, water. Call 1-800-GENOCIDE--tell govt reps that this is beyond unacceptable
(AFP)
KHARTOUM - Sudan has ordered a Catholic aid agency to close its operations in west Darfur by the end of the month, in a move the organization says will deprive 400,000 people of emergency food supplies.
"The government has asked us to leave Darfur because they said they couldn't guarantee our security," Catholic Relief Services (CRS) spokeswoman Sara Fajardo told AFP. "One of their claims was that we were distributing bibles. This is completely wrong. It is against all our operating principles. We are a humanitarian organisation whose work is based on need and not creed. The majority of our staff in Darfur are Muslim," she added.

The agency said in a statement late on Saturday that the forced closure of its food programme in west Darfur at the end of March would deprive more than 400,000 people of vital monthly food handouts.

CRS, which also builds schools and provides education, emergency shelter and water and sanitation supplies in Darfur, had been waiting to hear whether it could resume its operations there, after they were suspended in January.

It becomes the latest in a list of non-governmental organisations to be forced out of the war-torn western region in the past year, at a time when humanitarian work was already failing to meet local needs, according to the United Nations.
 
 
March 26, 2011

Meet Mia Farrow
Mia is a four year old Darfuri girl born in the Goz Amir refugee camp. Here is the link. http://www.stopgenocidenow.org/iact/iact10/day4
At this same camp last year I met an elderly woman who had taken the name Colin Powell. The whole camp called her Colinpowell
At Djabal refugee camp there are twin boys, now 5 years old, named Kofi Annan and Mia Farrow.
 
 

Washington Post
By Rebecca Hamilton
The Sudanese government is preventing aid organizations from delivering food and health services to hundreds of thousands of people in the conflict-ridden Darfur region of the country, according to Catholic Relief Services, one of the largest remaining groups there.
The crackdown has left displaced populations at risk of disease and malnutrition as the government increases military operations in the area.
"400,000 people in West Darfur are not receiving food rations...
Now we have reached the point that the situation is dire...
People are hungry."
 
 
March 20, 2011

the world responds to Gadhafi attacks as Darfur's people plead for protection

"We cannot stand idly by when a tyrant tells his people that there will be no mercy."
President Barack Obama, speaking of Libyan leader Mummer Gadhafi April 20 2011.

In 2006 President Obama, as a junior senator, was equally clear about the evils in Darfur, "Today we know what is right, and today we know what is wrong. The slaughter of innocents is wrong. Two million people driven from their homes is wrong. And silence in the face of genocide is wrong."

Yet he has done little to protect the anguished people of Darfur.

From wretched camps across Darfur and eastern Chad millions of souls are calling out to the Security Council and Western nations to intervene, as they have done in Libya, to protect Darfur's people from the on-going aerial bombardments and ground attacks by the Khartoum regime. But no one is listening despite the fact that the number of those who were killed recently in Darfur is more than the number who died in Libya.

Just since December, more than 100,000 civilians have fled their homes to join the 2.7 million already displaced. But there has been no reaction from any Western government. In Libya, by contrast, French fighter jets are now patrolling the skies to prevent further attacks by Gadhafi's forces.

Why has the world abandoned the people of Darfur?
 
 

Abyei town

Hardly anyone is there.  
 
 

Children who ran from gunfire and explosions




 
 

The road to Abyei

Many people have no where to go. The took all they could carry, and they ran.

 
 

The road to Abyei

some families have been taken in by family members or friends.
 
 

Yambio





 
 

New Sudan

Yambio
a boy, displaced by the LRA.  
sticker on bicycle -- New Sudan
 
 
March 15, 2011

' the people of South Sudan will not leave Abyei to suffer." -a brief, over simplified explanation
In January, Abyei's people were supposed to cast their votes on the issue of independence from the north. No question about what they want- independence from the north. However beneath Abyei is a wealth of oil. There are 25 oil fields in the Abyei area.. And the oil is the problem. Khartoum's tactic is to insist that the Missereya should also be allowed to vote. The Misserya are nomadic, Arab, herdsmen, based in the north and are among several groups that are infiltrated, funded, trained and armed by Khartoum. The people of Abyei do not question the Missereya's right to unrestricted grazing access, but as they are not a part of the community and the are in the Abyei area for just 3 months a year, residents do not believe the Misserya have a legitimate right to vote there.
The population of Abyei is not large, so if the Misserya were to vote-they could attach Abyei to the north. Residents of the Abyei area are Ngok Dinkas, a southern based tribe, and they would not accept being attached to the north. So the vote is now pending.
Another issue is the border itself. The people of Abyei want to make the ruling of the Hague tribunal binding and final-even though it significantly reduced their land. Khartoum wants more land/oil for the north.
On July 9 Southern Sudan will celebrate their independence from Khartoum. HE Deng Arop Kuoi, Chief Administrator of Abyei told me," If the South separates without a solution, I don't think Abyei will remain peaceful. It will be a war zone. One thing I am sure of, the people of South Sudan will not leave Abyei to suffer."

I can't post photos until I get home.
 
 

The Road to Abyei
The road to Abyei  is wide,  deeply rutted, and like the earth here, it is the color of vivid  brick.   Soon after after leaving the town of Agok (where my plane landed) I became aware of people and piles of household possessions - chairs, mattresses, pots, clothes - beneath trees and outside of huts.   Terrified by the recent  attacks upon their town, thousands of  citizens gathered their children and all they could carry- and they ran.  Some are staying with family members, others were simply under trees.  
Eleven-year-old Emanuel fled Abyei with his grandmother two weeks ago.  They walked some 20 miles carrying all they could. Emanuel tried to convey what it is like to be a child in a town that is being attacked.  “When I heard gunshots I ran home and I stayed inside.  We don’t know what is going to happen to us next,” Emanuel told me.  
Abyei town is eerily empty.  Almost all of the women and children have gone.  Houses are abandoned.  People left in haste.  Some men return during the day to check on their homes and possessions, but they leave before nightfall.  The town was quiet.  Scarcely a sound, no cars, just the occasional barking of a dog. The market place was virtually empty.  I saw one little boy fending for himself, scrounging for scraps of food.  He said he had not eaten for five days.  He is alone, hungry and scared.  

Chief Administrator of Abyei, Arop Deng, worries that the children of Abyei will soon be starving.  “The situation is desperate,” he said.  “We have run out of everything.  There is no water and there is very little food left.  People are terrified.”
 
 
 
 
March 13, 2011

Traveling
Heading for Abyei
 
 

Rose
Yambio- a center for children rescued from the LRA.

Grace does not appear to be more than 11 or 12, but "I don't know my age", she whispers. She was rescued recently after spending two years with the LRA. "They came in the morning", she told me, "they took me, along with lots of people in my village. On the way they separated the men and killed them. They said if we tried to escape they would kill us. We were walking non-stop. We didn't spend more than 2 days in one place. We walked and only ate white leaves . We just kept walking.

"I was severely beaten. My backside is very scarred. I was tired and my feet were cut and swollen -I didn't know where I was going and there was no end to it. At first I had no shoes but when eventually they saw how I was suffering and my feet were cut they gave me huge boots-but that was almost more difficult. The only thing I thought was, I want to be dead."

Eventually, when Ugandan forces attacked the LRA encampment where Grace was being held, the child was caught in crossfire and bullets shattered her leg . "Many people told me I would never walk again", Christina said. But MSF treated her and young Grace can walk although the deep wounds will be visible for the rest of her life. The trauma too will likely be with Rose for a very long time.
"When I thought of myself then, I thought I was dead because of what was happening to me.'

The frequency of LRA attacks have intensified in the last several weeks. Some speculate that this means their leader, Joseph Kony is nearby. He travels with 30 or more fighters, the rest of his forces roam in units of 2-7 men. Villagers are living in stark terror and they keep their children close.

It is a moral outrage that this can continue.
 
 
March 12, 2011

The most important thing is security
Yambio
Yesterday I went to Uze, another of the five camps for people displaced by the LRA in Western Equatorial State.  There, a woman named Zarufa told me that she is having a hard time feeding her 14 children and keeping them well. “They have diarrhea and malaria to bring them to the hospital you have to pay and you need money for that,” she said.  “The problem of food is huge because when we want to get back to our farms the chances are 7 out of 10 that we will be killed.  Even yesterday a man went to his farm- he was shot and his fingers were cut off.  The LRA are here today and tomorrow they are somewhere else.  They keep coming especially when it is dark.  Our children cannot go anywhere.”  Zarufa knows what she is talking about.  Both of her sisters’ children were stolen by the LRA.
  “We don’t have a home, we don’t have grain or cassava and we can’t pay for school or medicine.  But the most important thing is security.”
 
 
March 11, 2011

Yambio, Western Equatoria, south Sudan
Very rare access to internet.  Here in Yambio the talk is not of independence- although everyone I spoke with voted for it.  Here the talk is of the LRA. 
Since 2008, 20-30 thousand people have been driven from their homes by LRA attacks. I visited a camp for the displaced where people crowded around me saying "my child was stolen, my mother/father/brother/uncle  was killed, they cut up my baby and crushed his body with a morter." The killing and crushing of the bodies of babies have been witnessed by many people, on many different occasions,  from different villages. People are living in terror. " I go to sleep at night and I don't know if I will e alive in the morning,"said  Christine who was holding a beautiful little girl.  Christine had been asleep in the early morning when the LRA attacked her village. The chief sounded the alarm-  a distinct call that can mean only one thing.   She managed to take the infant lying beside her, and she ran for her life.   But Christine was not able to reach her toddler. She never saw the child again.
 
I spoke with several children who had been abducted by the LRA. One little boy was too traumatized to talk to anyone.   He had been forced to kill his father. Sister Giovana is one of four Italian nuns caring for this boy and 75 other children. She is particularly gentle with him.
 
"I came to South Sudan after many years in the North of Uganda," Sister Giovana said.  "That is why I want to mention also these children: thousands of boys and girls who have been abducted by the same group of rebels - children who have been taught to beat, to kill without mercy .... Those who are able to escape, they come back traumatized, they are no more the same ....  One boy was asked to kill his father, he did so, breaking his neck and head with a log.  This boy now free is often crying and sobbing for what he has done.  Another boy revealed that he killed 82 people, he was obliged to cut one of them with a machete into pieces.  Do you think they will ever forget what they did?  I am appealing to you - please protect them, put an end to this LRA group who destroys mind, heart, body everything."  
 
Sister Giovana was clear about the priority here:  "Security, security, security."    
 
My plan and hope is in place to reach Abyei by Monday, but of course the situation is volatile and anything can happen.
 
 
 
 
March 8, 2011

Confirmation of intentional burning of village in Abyei. Check out satellite images at Satellite Sentinel Project. Letter from Clooney and Prendergast
http://www.satsentinel.org/reports

‘Sadly, our concerns are now becoming a reality.

Over the past week, villages in the Abyei region were burned to the ground, and tens of thousands of people were forced to flee their homes. In Darfur over the past few months, the UN has also documented aerial bombardment of civilians and burning of villages with tens of thousands of Sudanese driven from their homes.

We urge you to join us in acting before this violence leads to a full-scale resumption of war in Sudan.

Thanks to our Satellite Sentinel Project, we now have something we’ve never had before: satellite images that we can use to show the world, with indisputable proof, the systematic nature of violence targeted against civilian populations.

Last fall, when we traveled to the region and spoke with the citizens of Abyei, we heard the same message again and again: the people of Abyei were worried that fighting would erupt, and they asked for the United States and other countries to step in to help protect them.

Take a look at the Satellite Sentinel Project report, and join us in asking President Obama to take swift, bold action to help stop the violence -- in Abyei, Darfur and all of Sudan.

Take action now.

Thank you for your help to support the people of Abyei and all of Sudan at this critical moment.

Sincerely,

George Clooney and John Prendergast
 
 

The Road Back from Abyei Jan 2011Douglas H. Johnson addressing the root causes of the conflict
the Parties are desirous of resolving the Sudan conflict in a just and sustainable manner by addressing the root causes of the conflict and by establishing a framework for governance through which power and wealth shall be equitably shared and human rights guaranteed.... Machakos Protocol

Any resolution of the Abyei dispute must address the root causes, which are:
•    the marginalization of the Ngok Dinka within the systems of parliamentary and
local government since the 1950s;
•    the progressive annexation of their territory by the Misseriya, ( semi nomadic Arab trib. herders) with support of
successive Khartoum regimes since the 1970s;
 •    the abrogation by Khartoum of the referendum promised in the Addis Ababa
Agreement of 1972;
•    the mobilization of Misseriya militias in the recent civil war during the 1980s and
1990s as a continuation of the policy of annexation.
 
 

From Eric Reeves most recent analysis
The destruction appears to have been wrought by heavily armed Misseriya Arab militia, but there are compelling reports from the SPLM <http://www.sudanreeves.org/Article308.html> and Abyei administrators that large numbers of regular soldiers have been involved in the assaults, and that weapons used in several attacks are not in the arsenal of the Misseriya; some of these weapons, according to the SPLM, require specialized training. Two helicopters reportedly evacuated wounded SAF and Popular Defense Forces (PDF) soldiers (UNMIS observers spotted an SAF helicopter in nearby Muglad, South Kordofan, at the time of the attacks). Several dead soldiers were identified as SAF after the attacks, including troops from the infamous 31st Brigade, which was responsible for the May 2008 destruction of Abyei town.  For its part, the PDF is a paramilitary force loyal to Khartoum and responsible for many of the civil war atrocities in South Sudan, the Nuba Mountains, and Darfur (Pax Christi recently released an important report documenting Khartoum’s ominous movement of large numbers of troops and weapons into the Nuba). But the Misseriya themselves have also been heavily armed by Khartoum, a development reported in detail by the authoritative Swiss-based Small Arms Survey.
If
Such reports are confirmed, Reeves concludes, “they would signal Khartoum’s unambiguous determination to seize all of Abyei as far south as Abyei town.  
 
 

This is also true-resumed fighting in Abyei could lead to resumption of widespread violence throughout Sudan
The latest images from Satellite Sentinel Project confirm the deliberate destruction and burning of three communities consisting of at least  300 homes as well as   "widespread and systematic targeting of civilian infrastructure across the Abyei region."  The violence in Abyei has caused tens of thousands of Ngok Dinka civilians, mainly women and children,  to flee southward.
Although South Sudan voted in January to secede from the north, both north and south lay claim to the oil rich border region of Abyei.

 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
March 7, 2011

Scary Statistics on Southern Sudan. I am heading for South Sudan tonight. Will blog when possible
This is my third trip to South Sudan. but this is special, truly an exciting moment in their history - a time to celebrate the birth of a new nation. I have friends here, and we have had many conversations about what the future might look like. People hope for peace and with it sustainable economic development, education and medical care. Here are some of the scary statistics.
Acute Malnutrition Nutrition surveys conducted in 2010 in these high risk states have revealed Global Acute Malnutrition rates as high 26.5%

Child Mortality -of every 1000 live births, 102 babies will not survive · One out of every 7 children will die before their fifth birthday
 Immunization Only about 10% of children are fully vaccinated.
 Malaria- Malaria is considered hyper-endemic in Southern Sudan.
HIV/AIDS -Only 8% have knowledge about HIV prevention.
Water and Sanitation - More than 50% of the population do not have access to safe drinking water. Only 6.4% of the population have access to latrines
Primary Education - Less than 50% of all children receive 5 years of primary school education. ·
 Gender - 92% of women cannot read or write. A 15 year-old girl has a higher chance of dying in childbirth than completing school.
Displacement According to reports by local authorities and/or assessment teams, in 2010, approximately 215,000 people have been newly displaced by inter-ethnic or armed conflicts in Southern Sudan.

In July, south Sudan will officially become one of the least developed countries on earth. To be sure, there are challenges ahead, but over and over again Sudan's people have demonstrated extraordinary resilience, courage and determination. Still, the assistance of the international community will be crucial in ensuring that the lowest rung of the economic ladder will be within reach of this fledgling nation. Also that the people are protected from further bloodshed.

 
 

Arab states call for Libya no-fly zone
Gulf Arab states call for imposing Libya no-fly zone

The Arab world has now suggested a no fly zone over Darfur.
Bombing upon civilians in Darfur continue. Last month 30,000 people fled attacks upon 13 villages. The newly displaced joined the 2.7 million people in wretched camps scattered across Darfur and eastern Chad.

It is interesting that when youth across the Arab world demanded freedom from tyranny and new, representational governance, the free world cheered them on. Yet when, in 2003, Darfur's people rose up demanding these same rights and freedoms, the world did nothing- even in the face of genocide.


 
 

Health and water problems at Zamzam, Abu Shouk Camps, Darfur

Radio Dabanga reports the newly displaced from Abu Shouk and  Zamzam Camps face a deteriorating situation with regard to health and food. There is also an outbreak of diseases. One of the new refugees informed Radio Dabanga that more than 12 children under the age of ten years old died from diarrhea and intestinal problems, adding that the majority of newly displaced are living under the open sky without food or shelter.The source noted the deteriorating environment of the camp, the high temperatures and the crowding of the newly displaced people in one place. 

The  IDPs at Abu Shouk Camp complained of an acute shortage of drinking water and lack of health services. One of the camp residents told Radio Dabanga that each family is limited to a ration of 2 jerry cans of water per day.
 
 
March 6, 2011

Satellite Sentinel Project Confirms Intentional Burning of Third Village in Abyei Region

3/6/11 | Enough Project

WASHINGTON -- The Satellite Sentinel Project (SSP) has released new satellite imagery confirming the intentional burning of a third village, Tajalei, in Sudan's Abyei region, in addition to the deliberate destruction since March 2 of the villages of Maker Abior and Todach. 

At least 300 buildings at Tajalei were intentionally destroyed by fire, according to Satellite Sentinel Project analysis of the DigitalGlobe satellite image, taken March 6 and analyzed by UNITAR/UNOSAT and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, with additional analysis by DigitalGlobe. Roughly two-thirds of those buildings appear to be consistent with civilian residential structures, known as tukuls.

George Clooney, who conceived of the Satellite Sentinel Project during a trip to Southern Sudan with Enough Project Co-founder John Prendergast, stated:
"The Satellite Sentinel Project is the first to confirm the widespread and systematic targeting of civilian infrastructure across the Abyei region. This is the kind of undeniable evidence we feared we'd see if we put a camera where we weren't welcome. Village burning has caused tens of thousands to be displaced, unknown numbers of civilian casualties, and the deliberate destruction of at least three communities. If this violence is left unchecked, it could put the entire North-South peace process at risk."
 
 

Victims have no hope of accessing justice - statements by Amnesty International
"Impunity extends far beyond the highest level of government and militia leaders. Victims have no hope of accessing justice, truth or reparations nationally."

"Despite the severity of the charges a number of countries, including Chad and Kenya which are party to the Rome Statute of the ICC, have obstructed justice by refusing to arrest President al-Bashir during official visits to their countries"

"The impunity re-enforces the cycle of violence in Darfur. Without justice, serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law continue to be committed on an almost daily basis against the civilian population"

 
 
March 5, 2011

Abyei -On Monday I am heading to south Sudan with UNICEF. I will get to Abyei, Insh'Allah. Will blog when internet is possible. May not be able to email photos until I get back
Over 100 people were killed in days of fighting in Sudan's hotly contested Abyei area, while thousands have fled southward away from the carnage. When south Sudan voted in January to secede, many observers warned that the move could lead to violence that could destabilize the entire region. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called it a "ticking time bomb" and New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof saw it as a "genocide foretold." With Sudan only months away from dividing formally into two new countries, some are now wondering: Is this the moment it all starts falling apart?
-Sudan's 22-year conflict killed 2 million people before a peace deal brought fragile calm in 2005. Observers have long warned that if conflict was to break out again, it would most likely start in Abyei, a tiny area of 4,000 square miles where Sudan's northern desert peters into the marshes of the south. Claimed by both the southern Ngok Dinka, who live there year-round, and the northern Misseriya, nomadic cattle-herders who move to the area in dry months, Abyei risks being torn apart as the nation splits along the divide between its Arab north and African south.
As originally envisioned by Sudan's peace deal, the Abyei dispute was to be settled through its own special poll alongside the southern independence vote. But the Abyei vote never happened. As southerners were voting for their freedom in January, Abyei whizzed with bullets — three days of attacks left at least 41 dead. Then this week the clashes returned with a new ferocity. On Sunday and Monday, northern forces killed "about 70" southern policemen and civilian fighters, according to the south's Sudan People's Liberation Army spokesman. The attacks moved to another village on Wednesday, killing at least 33 from the southern side, says an official who watched as the bodies were buried. --Casualty figures from the northern side are not known.
There is also confusion over who the attackers actually are. The northern government maintains the culprit is a Misseriya militia, acting on its own accord. The southern government in Juba says the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the north's paramilitary People's Defense Forces (PDF) were behind the attacks. As evidence, southern officials allege that two helicopters arrived at the scene of the Wednesday fighting to carry away the dead and wounded. The north has denied the use of helicopters, as well as any involvement in the conflict. "We don't support any militias," says SAF spokesman.
For Sudan watchers, it all sounds eerily familiar. During the Sudanese civil war, Arab pastoralist tribes like the Misseriya razed the bordering southern land on behalf of the government, who armed the militias and used them to open land for oil exploration, allowing them to take whatever spoils they liked from their raids in return. In Darfur, the same messy strategy was used to try to drain the armed insurgency of its civilian support, earning Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir an arrest warrant for genocide from the International Criminal Court.
 
- The north has made no secret of its hope to divide Abyei in two and hang onto the oil-producing region that it already controls. - against his rule.
. Late last year, U.S. special envoy Scott Gration led a nine-day summit in Addis Ababa dedicated entirely to re-addressing the Abyei dispute, but it ended without any agreement. The mediation mantle was then transferred to the African Union. Western officials involved say the process opened the original inked deal to re-negotiation. In the bustle, Abyei got decoupled from the wider peace process. As the U.S. makes moves to take Sudan off its list of state sponsors of terror as a reward for the peaceful January referendum, Abyei is no closer to a final resolution.
 
-Could the violence in one tiny piece of land throw Sudan back to war? - people in Abyei are not taking any chances. Reports from the ground suggest that half of Abyei town, or roughly 20,000 Ngok Dinka, have headed south on foot since Wednesday, fearing a full-on assault could be imminent. In 2008, Abyei town was destroyed in north-south clashes, and the memory still burns. If Abyei reverts back to war, south Sudan's birth will be a bloody one.
 
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2057209,00.html
 
 

UN should not be in the business of providing air transportation to indicted war criminals- unless to the Hague

UN Admits 2d Flight of ICC Darfur Indictee Haroun to Abyei in Sudan, Impunity

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, March 4,  The UN has for a second time offered a free UN flight in Sudan to Ahmed Haroun, under indictment by the International Criminal Court for war crimes in Darfur, the UN admitted Friday in response to questions from Inner City Press.

  On March 3 the UN Security Council met about renewed fighting in the disputed Abyei region. Back in January, Inner City Press got the UN to acknowledge they had flown ICC indictee Haroun from South Kordofan, where he serves fellow ICC indictee Omar al Bashir as governor, to Abyei.

  The UN has defended this controversial flight by saying that Haroun and Haroun alone could stop violence in Abyei. The UN never explained why the government of Sudan, which has an air force currently bombing civilians in Jebel Marra in Darfur, couldn't itself fly Haroun.

The UN said it was a scheduled flight, then UN Mission in Sudan chief Haile Menkerios admitted to Inner City Press that it was a special flight. Inner City Press is told such flights cost $40,000, and the UN has confirm no reimbursement has been sought from the Bashir government.

But now the violence has continued, making the UN flight of ICC indictee Haroun harder to justify even by the UN's own argument.http://www.innercitypress.com/un6harun030411.html
 
 
March 3, 2011

Grace, beauty, courage
Thank you Marian Anderson. Thank you
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rtpsd8VXTqc
 
 

IDPs demonstrate against air attacks; refugee hangs himself
  ZALINGEI      1 Mar  
Radio Dabanga reports displaced persons from  camps in Zalingei gathered to demanded that the international community and the United Nations take action to stop on-going atrocities in Darfur. They also called for the urgent return of humanitarian organizations that had been expelled. They are requesting that people across Sudan to go into the streets and demonstrate to topple the regime- as in Tunisia and Egypt.

On the same day, a young man from the Zamzam camp near El Fasher committed suicide. When he learned that family members had been forced to flee when their village was attacked by Sudanese bombers and ground forces, he hanged himself with a rope from a tree on the outskirts of the camp.  
A witnesses report that the thousands of newly displaced people coming to Zamzam are traumatized by what they have seen. Some of them are screaming at night, others are suffering from depression and “horror’ .
 
 
 

Continued attacks by Sudanese government in Darfur since last July forced 500,000 civilians to flee their villages.
SLM spokesperson Nimir Abdel-Rahman:
"The leadership of the Sudan Liberation Movement wants to meet with the Joint Special Representative Ibrahim Gambari and the (UNAMID) Force Commander Patrick Nyamvumba to discuss cooperation on issues related to the protection of civilians and humanitarian access."
The rebel official said the continued  attacks by government in Darfur generally and in Jebel Marra particularly since last July forced 500,000 civilians to flee their villages. He also said 250 civilians were killed by the regular forces and the militiamen.

The need to provide security and humanitarian assistance to the vulnerable villagers will top the agenda of the talks with the peacekeeping mission. Such cooperation will help the peacekeepers and the aid groups to reach civilians in the SLM controlled areas.
http://www.sudantribune.com/SLM-rebels-want-to-meet-UNAMID,38163
 
 
March 2, 2011

Arab League might impose Libya "no fly" zone. Bombing on-going in Darfur region
The Arab League declared today that if fighting continues in Libya,  it could impose a "no fly" zone in coordination with the African Union.  

The Arab world has not suggested a no fly zone over Darfur.
 Bombing upon civilians in Darfur continue. Last month 30,000 people fled attacks upon 13 villages. The newly displaced joined the 2.7 million people in wretched camps  scattered across Darfur and eastern Chad.

It is interesting that when youth across the Arab world demanded freedom from tyranny and new, representational governance, the free world cheered them on.    Yet when, in 2003,  Darfur’s people rose up demanding these same rights and freedoms,  the world did nothing- even in the face of genocide.  
 
 
«Newer Posts | Older Posts »