Darfur - Bev Russell, Library Director

(This column appeared in the July 22, 2007, Star-Herald)

As I write this article, I find it difficult to get my mind around the capacity of human beings to do evil. During the past century humanity witnessed the horror of genocide. Some of the most notorious infamies took place during the Holocaust and in Cambodia, Kosovo and Rwanda. Now, we can add Darfur to this list of atrocities. It is almost impossible to comprehend the terror of what is happening in Darfur. Author Brian Steidle brings this horror into focus with his book, "The Devil Came On Horseback: Bearing Witness to the Genocide in Darfur". This is a difficult book to read. It is even more difficult to revisit in this article.

In order to provide some background, a short geography and history lesson is needed. The Darfur region is located in the western half of Sudan, which is the country directly south of Egypt. A civil war has been raging in Darfur since 2003. The conflict is extremely complex and confusing especially to westerners. On one side of the conflict are the Sudanese military and the Janjaweed (devil on a horse), a militia group. The other side comprises a variety of rebel groups. Almost all of the combatants and victims in Darfur are Muslim. Muslims fight Muslims. The Janjaweed are Arab Muslims while those they fight are black African Muslims. Furthermore, the Janjaweed are from nomadic tribes, and their victims are from farming tribes. So there are multiple levels to the conflict—racial, tribal, economic, and so on. It is hard to get accurate casualty information because of the Sudanese government’s lack of cooperation; however, estimates of the dead range from 200,000 to 400,000 with approximately 2.5 million people displaced.

Because the war was going badly for them in late 2003, the Sudanese government began arming the Janjaweed militia and turned them loose on the black African tribal villages in Darfur. The Sudanese government publicly denies that it supports the Janjaweed but has provided them with money and assistance and participated in joint attacks with them. The Janjaweed attack African villages of unarmed men, women and children. They slaughter, rape and pillage. According to refugees and neutral monitors, the Janjaweed attack villages on horses and camels, following air raids by Sudanese government aircraft.

A badly under-funded and undermanned African Union Mission was dispatched to Darfur to monitor and document the situation. Beginning in 2004, Brian Steidle, a former Marine Corps officer, worked for the African Union as a photographer. He could photograph and document the genocide but could do nothing to assist the victims. Recording his experience in emails, audio journals, notebooks and nearly 1,000 photos, he wrote dozens of reports and waited for the countries, which funded his mission, to act. When they did nothing, he resigned in frustration. He now speaks and writes about the situation in Darfur and campaigns to stop the genocide.

Steidle tells this horrific story in human terms. As a member of the African Union mission, he could reach areas not available to journalists. At one location, a large nim tree on the outskirts of Wash al Tool, his group came across 250 women and children, who had escaped from a massacre in Alliet. These refugees found a small piece of shade under the tree and shared it with one another. Brian asked if anyone had been injured. One woman held up a small one year-old child. The little girl, whose name was Mihad Hamid, had been shot in the back. She had gapping entry and exit wounds. Her breathing was wheezy. Mihad’s mother was killed in the attack as she tried to save her children. An older brother also suffered from schrapnel wounds to his head. The child’s aunt, holding her up, offered her to Brian. He did not take the child which has bothered him ever since. Perhaps, if he had taken her, he could have saved one child. As of the writing of this book, Brian still did not know if Mihad Hamid survived. The book is dedicated to her.

Darfur is more than a name in the news. It is a place where human beings are suffering and dying in massive numbers. "The Devil Came on Horseback" puts a human face on the staggering figures. Those faces haunt this story as does the book’s final question. "When the genocide in Darfur has ended, what will you say you did to stop it?"

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