Darfur through a child's eyes
May. 1st, 2005 09:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brdgtFrom the New York Times Magazine this week, Darfur through a child's eyes.
Since 2003, Sudanese government forces and Arab militia fighters (janjaweed) have killed an estimated 300,000 people and displaced more than two million from the Darfur region of Sudan. Nearly a quarter-million refugees fill camps along the Sudan-Chad border. During a recent mission to these camps, researchers from Human Rights Watch gave children drawing materials while they interviewed their parents and other adults. Over two weeks, in nine camps, dozens of children drew similar scenes: bombings, burning villages, scenes of rape. Many children had already been making such pictures in their school notebooks. Here are two examples, with explanations as told to a researcher.
Top: Rashid, 13, from western Darfur ''I saw janjaweed coming quickly, on horses and camels. They were shooting guns and yelling, 'Kill the slaves. . . . ' I saw people falling on the ground and bleeding. They chased after my brother; he is 12. One girl I saw -- they tied her up, put her on a camel and went away. All our animals were taken. Then the planes came and bombed our village.''
Above: Salim, 13, from northern Darfur ''We returned from school. . . . We are all looking, and not imagining bombing. The first bomb landed in our garden. The bombs killed six people, including a young boy, two women, a boy carried by his mother and a girl. Now my sleep is hard because I feel frightened.''
Since 2003, Sudanese government forces and Arab militia fighters (janjaweed) have killed an estimated 300,000 people and displaced more than two million from the Darfur region of Sudan. Nearly a quarter-million refugees fill camps along the Sudan-Chad border. During a recent mission to these camps, researchers from Human Rights Watch gave children drawing materials while they interviewed their parents and other adults. Over two weeks, in nine camps, dozens of children drew similar scenes: bombings, burning villages, scenes of rape. Many children had already been making such pictures in their school notebooks. Here are two examples, with explanations as told to a researcher.
Top: Rashid, 13, from western Darfur ''I saw janjaweed coming quickly, on horses and camels. They were shooting guns and yelling, 'Kill the slaves. . . . ' I saw people falling on the ground and bleeding. They chased after my brother; he is 12. One girl I saw -- they tied her up, put her on a camel and went away. All our animals were taken. Then the planes came and bombed our village.''
Above: Salim, 13, from northern Darfur ''We returned from school. . . . We are all looking, and not imagining bombing. The first bomb landed in our garden. The bombs killed six people, including a young boy, two women, a boy carried by his mother and a girl. Now my sleep is hard because I feel frightened.''
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Date: 2005-05-01 05:23 pm (UTC)so sad.
the weekend after 9/11 i was with some people and their kids at a gathering.
the kids were drawing big buildings with fire on top and the parents explained it away in some completely unrelated way and i couldn't understand how they could be so clueless.
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Date: 2005-05-01 05:24 pm (UTC)