Stop Genocide Now
The thick layer of sand and smoke hangs in the air. My throat raw and scratchy from the days we have breathed in the Chadian air. Every visit has fallen at a different time of year: Jan, February, now March, June and August. And each one feels entirely different. I am parched and dry. The […]
We joke around with agencies’ staff, “The rebels wait for us to come, and then they make a move.” For me, sometimes joking and actually saying what I don’t want to happen helps relieve some of the tension, and I’m hoping that maybe it unleashes something of a reverse-jinx! It would be too much of […]
I would love to be taking a nap in the plane right now. We are 23,000 feet above the arid, Chadian desert. Finally, a step closer to the refugee camps. A step that was quite exhausting. But it wouldn’t be Chad if it was easy. After sleeping for about two hours, we abruptly finished packing, […]
Gabriel, Katie-Jay and Yuen-Lin have safely arrived in Chad! Their flight was delayed leaving Los Angeles, which made their transit in Paris very ‘exhilirating’. Their bags haven’t arrived yet though, but they will continue making preparations to head out to camps while they are there. Read more thoughts from Gabriel here.
11:35 AM – Smiling, with open arms, and full of hellos, 15 Darfuri men flood the LA Federal Building. They drove from Phoenix, AZ to be here. All have families inside of Darfur. One man’s mother was forced to journey to Camp Djabal in E. Chad, where we will be in less than a week, […]
A friend recently sent me a very appropriate e-mail that compared a week’s worth of food in various cultures. There were pictures of 10 families with their weekly groceries. At the top of the list was the Melander family in Germany, the Revis family in the United States was next, and at the very bottom […]
We visited Amira again today, a woman we met on our second day in the camps. But this time we were able to sit down with her for more than hour and really hear her story. She told two stories of young girls and violence against them during attacks in Darfur. The one I will […]
I’m sitting in UNHCR’s Bahai compound, little moth like bugs repeatedly bounce themselves from the fluorescent light, and even larger ones are brave enough to fly towards our computers. I’ve been thinking now for hours about what to write. What journey to take you through as you consume my words, and hopefully, retain a sense […]
“Please keep putting a fire under Bashir,” Amira asked from us and all Americans. She said that Bashir needs pressure, so that he will allow peace to come to Darfur. Amira wants to go back home with her husband and six children. She does not understand why her own government and the Janjaweed have destroyed […]
Download this profile to print Farha Age: 14 Refugee in Camp Oure Cassoni Nationality: Sudanese Her Story and family Farha father was killed during the attack that destroyed her village. Sudanese government helicopters and planes broke the silence right at dawn, swooping in, dropping bombs and shooting bullets. Then the Janjaweed rode in on camels […]