Slaughtered by the Thousands

Picture this: You’re just coming into your small village at dusk after tending the flocks all day. You look forward to the smell of campfires and your mother’s home cooking. Tonight your father is going to tell stories of the days when he was your age and chased a hungry lion away from the village, saving children and animals. Just as you approach the edge of your village, you notice that something isn’t quite right. The smell of campfires usually isn’t so strong, and the usual shriek of children playing is silenced. As you get closer, you realize that the burning smell isn’t campfires at all- it’s your whole village. Your world is gone. The Janjaweed, a government backed group, has destroyed your village. Your father and brothers are missing, your sisters and mother nowhere to be found. Blood stains shine through the charcoaled ruins. You recognize your neighbor’s body lying as a tangled mess in the weeds. She was a good person. You don’t know why someone would do that of all disgusting, sinful things to her. What will happen to you know?

This is a question for many in Darfur, Sudan. They are seeing the murder of their people by their own government everyday. Even those from other countries who came to help them are now becoming a target of the evil Janjaweed. Since 2003, this genocide, as it was proclaimed by the president, has been happening before our eyes. We can not do anything for those already gone, but we can still help those in displaced persons camps. We must help, must not let them lose their hope, their faith.