Fri May 18, 2012
Photos courtesy of the Farrows
Ronan and Mia Farrow traveled to Sudan to file a report on the unspeakable human rights violations
Desperate for Help in Darfur
By Victoria Morphy, Connecticut – September 2006
Haleema, a young Darfurian woman, will never forget her enemy. Branded like cattle and forever scarred emotionally, Haleema also has nightmares of the tragic day her youngest child, an infant, was torn from her back and killed with a bayonet as her two other children were hacked up alive right before her eyes – all three bodies then tossed into a well to poison the water.
Despite her grave loss Haleema still has hope. Hope for security and protection and of returning to her village hangs as frailly as the thin chain she wears around her neck with the remnants of a broken charm – a Quran – all that is left of her worldly possessions. Yet hope was renewed when she met actress and UNICEF ambassador to Darfur Mia Farrow.
Farrow on her second trip to Darfur could not have prepared herself for happened next. “She took [the charm] from her neck and said ‘this is for your safety and your children,’” Farrow recounted. “I could give her nothing for her safety. I was absolutely mute and could only bow my head in deep respect. And it was [Haleema] who said, ‘Tell people what is happening here.’”
And Mia Farrow is telling. In the last month alone, she has given over 1,000 interviews. Her mission – to share stories, like Haleema’s, to educate the international community and remind them that genocide still rages in Darfur. “If people know, they will respond,” she said. But sadly, many people remain ignorant, or at best ill-informed.
The conflict in Sudan has a historical timeline of nearly half a century. However, not until recently has the Darfur region (located in the western part of Sudan) been under a siege of ethnic violence that has claimed over 100,000 lives and uprooted more than 2 million people.
While many of the causes of the conflict remain unclear, specific precipitants have been identified. Tensions initially erupted in 2003 when two rebel groups, the Sudanese Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement, angered by discrimination, waged a civil war against the Islamist, Khartoum-based national government. In response, the government organized armed militia forces, called the Janjaweed to end the rebellion. However, instead of smothering the rebellion, these armed forces killed civilians in the most disgusting ways.
Farrow who has met with members of both the Sudanese Liberation Army and the Sudanese government in efforts to instigate change said, “I learned nothing from the government except that it was interesting to meet people who are party to a genocide in a hair-raising, your worst nightmare kind of way.”
However, from the rebel groups Farrow learned that a UN Peace Accord was rubbish because it lacked provisions for representation and compensation. “[They need] compensation because they want to be able to go back to rebuild their homes and plant when this is over,” Farrow explained. “They feel that they should be compensated for what they have lost: food, land, shelter, and security. Both rebel groups also want to be represented in the government.”
The SLA Rebel fighters, once unified with the other rebel groups signed the UN Peace accord presumably motivated to end the violence. In fact, however, they have aligned with the Sudanese government and along with the Janjaweed are responsible for some of the most brutal deaths in the region.
If this hasn’t complicated the situation enough, the genocide in Darfur is also being fueled by powerful economic interests. China’s interests in the southern region of Sudan for oil and Russia’s interest in an arms trade with the Sudanese government has blocked any agreement among the members of the UN Security Council. China has abstained from voting on a Chapter Seven Mandate, which would allow a United Nations peace keeping force to come into the region without the permission of the government.
While thousands have died and millions continue to suffer in refugee camps, humanitarian workers with help from the Red Cross, UNICEF and the World Food Program risk their lives bringing aid to the survivors. It is because of these 14,000 humanitarian workers with the support of the World Food Program that Darfur has not collapsed into a worse state of famine and death.
“Every person in the camp without exception has been traumatized,” said Farrow. “All of them have fled burning villages in terror. All of them have witnessed family members slaughtered in ways that are too horrible to relate. And now all are living under a tarp and with their future unknown.”
A passive response to Darfur is not good enough. “At this very moment the worst-case scenario is beginning to unfold,” Farrow said. “Humanitarian workers are being attacked and if humanitarian workers are withdrawn, then the only infrastructure in place for the people of Darfur will collapse. Once that happens the wells won’t be working, the food deliveries won’t come, and we will begin to see hundreds of thousands of deaths in every month.”
Farrow continues to tell stories like Haleema’s because she hopes that with each interview she will inspire people to care and become active. “There is power in numbers. We must go to battle with our voices and actions because the people of Darfur sure can’t do anything. They are utterly helpless, and that leaves us.”
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