Nadia Died in 2004...Others Also Continue to Die Today

(Photo: AP)
I apologize for the sermonizing...I am gripped by the stupidity of the silly 48 hour extensions to the peace/power sharing agreement being hammered out by the Sudanese government and the rebel groups. These talks have been going on for a year!

More than 2 million people have been displaced, more than 200,000 have died by the violence which started three years ago when black African rebels took up arms against Khartoum. The government has in turn used arab militias to implement a policy of "draining the pond." By burning villages and killing people thought to support the rebel groups it means to starve the rebel movement of its supporters. Thus, the refugee crisis. Thus, the starvation of children.

In the meantime, talks continue. What difference could another 48 hours make to a process which could not be wrapped up after a whole year at the negotiating table?

What follows are excerpts from an article by BBC correspondent, Hilary Anderson. The piece was originally aired on Saturday, 24 July 2004...yes, 2004!
You can link to the full article by clicking on the title of this post.

"Among the stench and flies, the children lie wasted, staring into space. Tiny human beings, who were born into the madness of man's inhumanity to man...And now, they face starvation which is cruel and slow.

We travelled to Mornay camp, where we were a month ago. On arriving back, we went to the medical tent. It was strangely quiet inside.

Four people were sitting in a circle. A mother was looking down and sobbing silently, rubbing her hands on her face. I realised I knew her. Then it slowly came to me what was going on. Her daughter Nadia, whom we had spent two days with in this tent a month ago, was dying.

The mother, Juma, was saying an awful goodbye.

After the funeral I went to pay my respects. But when she saw me, perhaps remembering the filming we did with Nadia last month, she started screaming "Nadia, Nadia, Nadia".

She fell on me, screaming, she kept screaming. She kept repeating her daughter's name. Then the older women started screaming too. When Juma left the graveyard I saw her walking away on her own, sobbing and crying her child's name out into the breeze of the vast desert, into the nothingness of the camp."