Darfur and Sub-Saharan Africa

Darfur: Since February of 2003, Darfur has been embroiled in a deadly conflict over the lack of development and political marginalization by the Sudanese government. At least 400,000 people have been killed and more than 2 million innocent civilians have been forced to flee their homes and now live in displaced-persons camps in Sudan or in refugee camps in neighboring Chad. More than 3.5 million men, women, and children rely completely on international aid for survival. Not since the Rwandan genocide of 1994 has the world seen such a calculated campaign of displacement, starvation, rape, and mass slaughter.

The Bush Administration has labeled these atrocities as genocide. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has described the situation in Sudan and Chad as “the largest and most complex humanitarian problem on the globe.”

In August of 2006, the UN's top humanitarian official, Jan Egeland, stated that the situation in Darfur is "going from real bad to catastrophic." The international community is in agreement that the UN Security Council must send a peacekeeping force with a mandate to protect civilians immediately. Until and unless that becomes a reality, the under-funded and overwhelmed African Union monitoring mission must be reinforced and governments and international institutions must make available and guarantee access to sufficient humanitarian aid for those in need.

Sub-Saharan Africa: Of an estimated 40.3 million persons living with HIV/AIDS in 2005, 25.8 million lived in Sub-Saharan Africa. By 2010, an estimated 20 million children in the region will have lost a parent to AIDS. Many of the children in this region are receiving no schooling at all. Just under half of Sub-Saharan Africa’s population (some 313 million people) survives on less than $1 a day!

Action Plan

The Social Concerns Committee will:
(1) Keep our religious communities informed about conditions and developments in Darfur and Sub-Saharan Africa and make recommendations for actions they may wish to take;
(2) Try to make contact and establish relationships with Africans in Africa and in our local area;
(3) Find out about and publicize opportunities for local college students to learn about and become actively involved with the people of Africa and the preventable negative situations they endure, and
(4) Study U.S. policy toward Africa and make recommendations for its improvement to U.S. State Department officials and members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.

How can you help? You can help by becoming a member of the Social Concerns Committee’s Darfur and Sub-Saharan Africa Team and by attending the committee’s monthly meetings. If you can’t attend the committee meetings, you can still be part of the D&SSA team by contacting Roni Love.

There are many additional things that can be done to help Darfur, including informing yourself and others about Darfur, writing to your local newspapers and holding video screenings to raise public awareness about this important issue. In addition, you can write to members of the UN Security Council, to the Sudanese government, to your senators and representatives as well as to the president of the United States urging effective action to ending the violence in Darfur.

Visit www.SaveDarfur.org and find out what more you can do.

List of Resources

Darfur

Save Darfur Coalition

Teens 4 Peace

Darfur is Dying

American Jewish World Service

Catholic Relief Services

Children’s Hunger Relief Fund

Human Rights First

Lutheran World Relief

Western Sikh Students Association