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| March 31, 2010 |
Al-Bashir refers to “ the Gharbawia’ [a Darfuri woman]. When a Ja’ali [ Al-Bashirs tribe-which is the dominant Arab tribe] man humps her, is this an honor or rape?”
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article34594
People told me how they were raped and tortured in their own homes, they have seen family members and neighbors butchered, precious possessions were stolen. And so, throughout the region people are in flight. But nowhere is safe. A mother in a refugee camp told me she has moved 10 or 15 times, she has lost count. As we stood in the camp, many hundreds or thousands of refugees were gathered, eager to get onto the UN busses and trucks who would take them to yet another location. The camp was now on a new front line of warfare between Rwandan militia groups and the Congolese army. Armed men in uniforms had come to this camp around 5 PM on three consecutive evenings to rape women and girls. They even raped a one year old baby.
Human Rights Watch sent a team to investigate the previous massacre in February which left at least 320 dead . Witnesses say the number of dead could be twice that.
The NY Times reported that, according to witnesses, "most victims had been taken from their village, tied at the waist and forced into the jungle, often with enormous loads of looted food balanced on their heads. Along the way, fighters randomly selected captives to kill, usually by an ax blow to the back of the head."
"They only screamed once" said Jean Claude Singbatile, a high school student who spent 2 weeks in captivity and witnessed the killings.
The last time Cecelia Nendu saw her 3 sons they were bound with rope and being marched toward the brush.
"I think they are dead" she said.
| March 28, 2010 |
| March 25, 2010 |
| March 24, 2010 |
"The sheer scale of dirty water means more people now die from contaminated
and polluted water than from all forms of violence including wars," the United Nations Environment Programme said.
| March 23, 2010 |
" We wanted them to see the free and fair elections but if they interfere in our affairs, we will cut their fingers off, put them under our shoes and throw them out."
| March 22, 2010 |
There we were received in the traditional way: men on horses were waiting, wearing ancient costumes and there was singing and musicians. After some songs, enactments and words of welcome, the Governor himself showed me around Bol. With the parched lands of Mao still in my mind, it was a joy to see lush, well tended fields and chest high crops. All of the work here is done by hand, no machinery or even cattle plows.
I was raving about the beauty of Bol and over lunch the governor confirmed that it is indeed a near perfect place- except for one thing. The water in Bol has become salty and polluted. It is making people sick, especially the children.
In fact something has happened to the water in Lake Chad. After Lake Tanzania and Lake Victoria, the grand lake is the third largest in all of Africa. It touches 4 countries: Chad, Niger, Nigeria and Cameroon. But it is only 40% of the size it was in 1956. Not only that, green algae is covering most of the lake's surface. There are islands on the lake. No one was sure exactly how many but more than 50. And at least 280,000 people are living on those islands. They farm and they have animals. They speak many different languages on the various islands and they are without phones, radios, medicines, schools or doctors. They are, I imagined, living as they have for centuries. I was and I remain, absolutely fascinated, and while the governor spoke all I could think of was how can I get myself out to those islands. But he said there was no boat deemed to be safe enough and we had to accept that we would not be visiting any islands. This time.
I kept asking questions and I learned that although the island people live in the most remote places imaginable, the worst of civilization has found them. Traders from Nigeria, Cameroon, and Niger come through the lake, stopping on the islands and they have brought HIV/Aids to the lake people. The people have not heard of AIDS. They have no information, no medicines and no way to protect themselves. The governor estimated that at least 20% of the island people are now infected.
Then he did something astonishing. The Governor of the Lac region of Chad presented me with a sealed document that officially grants me ownership of a piece of land on the shores of Lake Chad. He explained that if I came to live there, then people would surely know they exist.
So,I now have land in a remote and beautiful part of Chad. I love the people and I love the land. I would like to use my property to build something for the people of Bol, either a school, a women's center or a desalinization plant, and I will keep a little section where I can sleep when I come to Bol.
| March 16, 2010 |
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THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
There's a Famine in Chad
The rainfall last year was barely a third of what it once was.
By MIA FARROW Kanem region, Chad
Mao is a sand swept town in the Kanem region in the far west of Chad. It is the most desolate and powerfully beautiful place I have ever seen. There are no roads here. Homes are constructed of bricks made of sand and dung. Through the centuries, little has changed in Mao. The people have always been herders, farmers and traders. The men ride camels, the women and children, donkeys.
But the rainfall last year was barely a third of what it once was and the sands of the Sahel have been moving relentlessly over the parched Kanem region. With drought came the failure of the crops. The food stocks are gone. The people of Mao remain hopeful. They sweep the sand from their rooms and courtyards, they build more walls and they tend tiny, thorny trees carefully sheltered from the blowing sand inside little teepees. But the saplings are struggling and few survive. Trees planted years ago still produce green leaves, but strangely their roots have begun to reach out of the sand toward the rainless sky.
The Sultan of Kanem is a tall, elegant man who, like his father before him, has presided over the region from his seat in Mao for most of his 90 years. His eyes are clouded as he ponders the unthinkable—whether the day is near when he will have to lead his people away from beautiful, ancient Mao to distant riverbeds, which will fill when the rains come. There, things would grow, people would have enough to eat again and the animals could graze. As things are, he explained, the camels are dying.
But the real horror, the unspeakable truth is that the babies of Mao are dying too. The numbers of starving children far exceed the capacity of Unicef's emergency feeding center. Cases of formula and life-saving nutrients are arriving, but many children are already too weak to swallow. The Chadian government must urgently take action, along with the World Food Program and other relief agencies before it is too late.
Ms. Farrow is an actress.
| March 13, 2010 |
It's also permanently listed in my author archive:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mia-farrow/
The LRA is Ugandan cult army without any current political agenda. It was founded by Joseph Kony in the 1980s. Since then Kony and his followers have been moving through deepest brush in Uganda, Congo, south Sudan and CAR, emerging only to plunder villages and to murder, rape, abduct and mutilate people. They abduct children to use as sex slaves, porters and to replenish their fighting forces.
Sudanese planes have been spotted delivering arms and supplies to LRA outposts. A witness reported watching a plane full of weapons being unloaded, after which children were brought out of the bush and put on the plane. Presumably the children were flown back to northern Sudan to be sold on the slave market.
After the LRA attacked a Central African village in Obo, they took three hundred children. I spoke to a UN rep who described the silence of the childless village, interrupted by the sound of weeping parents.
In the 1990s and early 2000s the LRA served as a proxy army for the Sudanese government in its war against south Sudan- just as that same regime would later work in tandem with the marauding Janjaweed militia.
In the past year alone the LRA have killed thousands and sent almost a half a million traumatized people fleeing from their homes. The militia has now moved into south Darfur-- an area controlled by the Sudanese Government.
LRA leader Kony and Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir have a thing or two in common. Both are wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Ugandan Army has pursued and killed some members of the LRA, but in Sudan they have been offered a safe haven by their patron, Omer al-Bashir.
| March 12, 2010 |
“We used to have plenty of food here, but we don’t get as much rain anymore and there is more and more sand everywhere,”
This little boy is one year old Adam Abdulai. In a desperate attempt to save her son, Adam's mother, Hawa had to carry him either on foot or donkey for 28 miles.
Hawa said, “We didn’t have much food when I was pregnant. I was eating boule (millet based paste) once or twice a day during my pregnancy. I got very sick and weak after the birth…I could not breast feed him properly.
Mao used to be home to a huge pastoral and farming community, but a shortage of viable land to grow crops has had a crippling effect .
The lack of vegetation is also killing cattle. In 2009 around 31 percent of the herd in the region perished in 2009. The number of deaths will surely increase this year. Around 2 million people are in need of food here in the western region. The World Food Programme and the Food is planning to distribute food aid for people and cattle. They will have to hurry-
camels were waiting to bring me to the house of the Governor of Mao, where I stayed
me and my camel
little girls in Mao
in the center of Mao people set up protection for newly planted trees
women crossing Mao on donkeys
Over the centuries nothing has changed in Mao -until now. The rainfall this year was just a third of what it had been in previous years and the sands of the Sahel move relentlessly over the region. People try to remain optimistic- they plant tiny trees and carefully construct little teepees to protect them from the sand. But the Sahel is winning the battle. Nothing much will grow now. Babies and camels are dying. People have begun to use the word, famine.
We arrived on day five of an intense dust storm. We were told that such storms usually last 4-5 days and that proved to be accurate
Camels were waiting to bring Unicef Country Director Dr Marzio Babille and me to the governors dwelling where we were given rooms. There are no other lodgings for travelers in Mao.
We arrived on day five of an intense dust storm. We were told that such storms usually last 4-5 days and that proved to be accurate
Camels were waiting to bring Unicef Country Director Dr Marzio Babille and me to the governors dwelling where we were given rooms. There are no other lodgings for travelers in Mao.
| March 10, 2010 |
http://www.one.org/blog/2010/03/09/polio-a-shameful-legacy/
| March 8, 2010 |
I took the first four photos a few years ago. Photos 5+6 are from this week. As you can see, the kids are growing up.
The last photo is me with some of the Irish guys at the Minurcat base in Goz Beida. The Chadian people, IDPs and Sudanese refugees love them. It's not only that they can finally feel safe but the troops greet them with the respect they deserve. Sadly, their mission, and therefore that safety is being ended as a part of the deal between the Chadian and Sudanese presidents.
| March 6, 2010 |
He smiles now and he asked me if I could get him a ball. He is smart-he has learned some English as well as French. Given half a chance Bakit could do anything
| March 2, 2010 |
Hell is a blind man in a lawless land waiting for his attackers to return.
Today Goz Beida is quiet. Peaceful. I asked Abdullah if he feels safe now. He said, " I feel safe only because Minurcat is here". He was referring to the United Nations peacekeeping force which has a base nearby. The soldiers at this base are Irish, Russian and Finnish. Abdullah added, "if Minurcat leaves they must take me with them. The Janjaweed will return and they will kill me."
He doesn't know yet that Chadian President Deby has decided to oust the international peacekeepers before the end of April.