There you are…walking slowly towards the hundreds of tents housing the Sudan refugees. They can hardly be called tents…more like piles of trash that people are living under. The wind and dust sweeps past your face, and your hair blows all around. The smell is rotten and dirty.

The wind is cooler than the day before, but you still sweat. Your clothes are dusty, but you’re not noticing. Under your arms are two boxes, one full of candy and treats, the other full of food and clothing. You near the first tent, and suddenly almost out of nowhere, children beign to run towards you.

They are dressed in rags, most of them skinny, dirty, and small. You set the boxes down, and scoop up a little girl and swing her up into your arms. You reach into your pocket and grab a little peice of candy and offer it to her. Her smile tells you she most certainly wants it.

You set her down and begin to open the box. Many other workers are behind you and begin to arrive. When the boxes are open, you begin handing out candy to all the children, who are giggling and smiling at you. “How can they do it?” you wonder, “after all they have gone through?”

The children all gather around and give you a great big hug. Your heart leaps and the tears can’t stop as they pour down your face as you wrap your arms around them…

The lives of about 210,000 to 350,000 lives have been lost in a huge genocide in Sudan according to a recent U.N. estimate. The Janjaweed, a government backed militia has been driving millions from their villages or killing them, all for the sake of “ethnic cleansing.”

Christianity Today: “[Now], in remote border camps, displaced families live under plastic sheeting with grossly inadequate food and water. They have just enough food to starve-slowly. Already 20 children a day may die in these camps, where 70 people sometimes share one pit latrine.”

Men, women, and children are being brutally beaten or murdered. It is a terrible story, one that reminds you of the many killed in the Holocaust. Here are just some who have been killed…please pray for their families:

Ishaq Abaker Hamid
Mohamed Abdalla Mohamed Hamid
Musa Ahmed Hassan
Adam Hussein Hamid
Ali Siddiq
Mahir Elfaki Imam
Ahmed Abdelkarim Shogar
Abdelkarim Sharaf Eldin
Fatima Adam Hussien (female)
Mariam Mohamed Hamid (female)
Ahmed Mohamed Abdella Dinar
Rahma Gamaa Abdela (female)
Halima Yaagoub Khamis (female)
Abdella Yagoub Khamis
Ahmed Ramadan
Haroun Abdel Aziz Abaker
Iessa Adam Yagoub
Ishaq Adam Musa
Hussein Abdela Ibrahim
Abdel Nur Abdela Ismail

Abdella Dawood Abdelalla
Mohamed Iessa
Adam Ahmed Abaker
Abaker Abdella Adam
Musa Adam Ahmed
Abdel Shakour Ali
Mohamed Adam Ali
Halima Eltahir Abdella (female)
Aisha Ahmed Elhaj (female)
Mariam Abdel Rahman (female)
Abok Alfa Akok (female)
Abdu Ismail Tong
Yousif Yaow Mombai
Mohamed Adam Yahya
Ahmed Suleiman Mohamed
Mohamed Hassan Mahmoud
Ahmed Yassin

“Islamists in Sudan have not given up their jihad-in-Africa campaign,” says Faith McDonnell, director of the Church Alliance for a New Sudan, based in Washington, D.C. “Are we willing to get in there and help southern Sudan? To build schools, churches, hospitals, roads? Are we willing to help train pastors? Will we force the cessation of genocide in Sudan?”

These people are being killed, and not much is being done for them.

On September 9, 2004, the Secretary of State Colin Powell declared to the US Senate that genocide was occurring in Darfur, for which he blamed the Sudanese government and the Janjaweed.

But now “The Bush administration has forged a close intelligence partnership with the Islamic regime that once welcomed Osama bin Laden here, even though Sudan continues to come under harsh U.S. and international criticism for human rights violations.” (La Times)

The beginning of the Sudan Genocide began in 2003 because of a past history of civil war. The Justice and Equality Movement and Sudanese Liberation Army attacked Sudanese government forces and installations. The government responded by sending in Arab Janjaweed troops. Civilians were targeted based on their ethnicity. If you aren’t Arab, you are targeted.

The government denied that they were supporting the Janjaweed, but it was all lies. It was a carefully planned genocide and “ethnic cleansing.”

10,000 people are dying a month. And the international involvement has been extremely low. But you have a chance to get involved. Please tak a moment and write to these folks in Sudan:

His Excellency Lieutenant General Omar Hassan al-Bashir
President of the Republic of Sudan
President’s Palace, PO Box 281, Khartoum, Sudan
Fax: (00 249) 11 771651, (00 249) 11 787676, (00 249) 11 783223
Salutation: Your Excellency

Mr Ali Mohamed Osman Yassin
Minister of Justice and Attorney General
Ministry of Justice, Khartoum, Sudan
Fax: (00 249) 11 788941, (00 249) 11 774842, (00 249) 11 774906
Salutation: Dear Minister

Mr Mustafa Osman Ismail
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs
PO Box 873, Khartoum, Sudan
Fax: (00 249) 11 779383
Salutation: Dear Minister

Dr Ahmed al-Mufti
Advisory Council for Human Rights
PO Box 302, Khartoum, Sudan
Fax: (00 249) 11 779173
Salutation: Dear Dr al-Mufti

COPIES TO:

Mr Hafez al-Sheikh al-Zaki
Chief Justice, Supreme Court
Khartoum, Sudan

Kanzlei der Botschaft der Republik Sudan
Kurfürstendamm 151, 10709 Berlin
(S.E. Herrn Ahmad Gafaar Abdelkarim)
Telefax: 030-8940 9693
E-Mail: post@sudan-embassy.de

Also, check out my last post on Darfur for more ways to get involved.