Darfur Conflict, How Can You Help?

On April 27th there will be an African dinner in Somer's Hall and a show in the Mitchell. The price is $25 and $10 for students to attend both events. You can also just attend one of the two events for $5. All the proceeds will go to purchasing two stoves for a family in the refugee camp. These stoves enables the people to cook by the sun. The tickets can be purchased by calling Gary Gordon at 723-6396 or by emailing him at ggordon@css.edu. If you would like to help, but will be busy that day, you can also simply donate money with attending the events by contacting Gary Gordon.

I know Krystal covered a little bit about the Darfur conflict but I thought I would give more information about it. In the daily student announcement from Gary Gordon, he mentioned a few good statistics. 2,000,000 people were driven from their homes in Darfur by the Sudanese army and their Janjaweed allies because they were on the wrong side of the tribal divide. Another 400,000 were murdered. The survivors (mostly women and children) escaped to 16 refugee camps in Chad. Camp Touloum has 5,000 families.

Darfur, which means land of the Fur, has faced many years of tension over land and grazing rights between the mostly nomadic Arabs, and farmers from the Fur, Massaleet and Zagawa communities. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3496731.stm) The Darfur conflict is an ongoing armed conflict in the Darfur region of western Sudan, mainly between the Janjaweed, a militia group recruited from the tribes of the Abbala Rizeigat (Bedouin Arabs), and the non-Baggara people (mostly land-tilling tribes) of the region. (Wikipedia.com) The estimate of number of deaths is in the hundreds of thousdands by now. As many as 2.5 million are said to have been misplaced by this conflict. The conflict is said to have started when the Darfur Liberation Front claimed credit for an attack on the Jebel Marra District.

Millions of people have fled their villiages to camps near the main towns, but they are struggling to survive because there is not enough food, water, or medicine. Many agencies are working to help Darfur but they are unable to get through because of the fighting. African troops have been deployed to stop the violence but there are too few troops for the amount of fighting that is happening.

Next I would like to inform you of a few ways that you can get involved. There are simple ways that anyone can help. If you ever wanted to make a difference, this would be one good way to do so. The Protect Darfur project lobbies governments to take preventative action to prevent further attacks and seek solutions. The American Jewish World Service is responding with humanitarian aid and advocacy to help end the conflict. These are only two ways to help, but there are many others. The easiest way for St. Scholastica students to get involved is to donate though the school by contacting Gary Gordon. There is a list of ways to help on the following website. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibliography_of_the_Darfur_conflict