Darfur Images

Darfur is burning. But we all knew that already, didn't we? After all, 300,000 dead and 2.5 million homeless (just another number? think about it) isn't enough reason for the UN to actually do something.

Atleast Google isn't evil. It's possible for you to see the extent of the destruction in Darfur in high-resolution using the Google Earth software. It's impossible to miss if you pan over Africa.

For example, in the picture below, you can see the village of Niala. The circles you see are what's left of the mud huts with straw roofs, known as gottias. (Click on the images to get a larger image)



Similarly, this is the village of Selenyi, which has been completely destroyed.



In some cases, you can even see the ashes of some huts which have been recently burnt



Google Earth also allows integrates actual photographs from various destroyed villages, videos and testimonies of some survivors. Here's an account from a 61-year-old interviewed in Goz Amer

"It was early when I heard the noise and went out to see what is happening. When I opened the door there were Janjawid pointing a gun at me. They told me to stop and they aimed at me with their guns. The Janjawid were everywhere. I saw them collecting men from all the huts, it was mainly men from 16 to 35 years of age. They took them out of the village. They took as they liked, money and belongings. They took the men by car outside of the village. I could see the car returning to bring more every ten minutes back and forth. They took the men behind the mountain. The government army was there with their guns, but they did not burn the village and they did not loot. But they were there with the Janjawid. Behind the mountains they killed them and they arrested others. On that Friday they killed 116 men. I saw the dead bodies behind the mountains. They killed my son, Isa Ibrahim Shagar, he was 23 years of age. They took everything we had. We heard them shooting people. Those who were arrested were told to go and see [name of Janjawid leader] to pay to be released. This was all still on Friday.

"Those who were arrested were tied up: arms behind their body, they had to lie face down on the earth and were beaten. They were hitting them hard until their heads were bleeding. They told us that those between the age of 16-35 could not pay only those older than 55 could pay. They asked for 500.000 Sudanese Pound for one person. Only eight people could pay.The remaining men and women and children were kept under trees outside the village and the Janjawid did not allow anybody to move. We heard women who went to collect firewood who were raped. There was a 15 year old girl, I do not know her name, she was raped by the Janjawid when she went to collect fire wood. Those who were still arrested they were told to get into the cars, because they would to take them to the police in Garsila. But they were taken behind the hills and killed. Some of us could climb the hills and see what they did.On Saturday they killed the rest of the men. This time they did not use their guns, they twisted their necks. One Janjawid stood behind the man to hold him down and others twisted the neck until it broke."

Meanwhile, Sudan's president steadfastly refuses to accept that there's any crisis, completely ignoring the blinding evidence as a conspiracy of the "west" to undermine his country's sovereignty.

They say that more than 200,000 thousand have been killed in Darfur, we affirm that this number is not true and that... the number of deaths has not reached 9,000. Any talk of a humanitarian crisis is not true

So, what exactly can we, as individuals, do to end this atrocity?

Nothing really. We can only sit and observe the worst human atrocity in recent history run its course. The organization which has the military power to end this organized mass murder and genocide, the UN (or should I say, the USA?), is happy to remain a passive observer. Governments continue to "impose sanctions", "strongly condemn", "compile evidence" and do absolutely nothing while the genocide bleeds on, people murdered, just like that. Where’s the attention from the world?