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Action by Churches Together (ACT) International and Caritas Internationalis have released a new documentary on the Darfur conflict called "Drawing Darfur."
The name comes from the film's central focus, a peace-building workshop for young people in which they draw images of their lives from the past, the present and the future, in a project aimed at helping children to understand what has happened to them, their rights, and how they can overcome the trauma and work toward peace.
The drawings from those workshops, made in August and November, were also used to put together a 2007 calendar for the two organisations, which operate a joint relief and development programme in Darfur.
We see the conditions millions of Darfurians, especially children, are forced to live in, because of a conflict that has seen civilians killed indiscriminately or flushed from their burning villages, left with nothing of their own.
It is estimated that at least 200,000 people have been killed since 2003 when the fighting dramatically escalated between the Sudanese government and Darfurian rebels. More liberal estimates put the death toll so far at 400,000 people, and that number is constantly on the rise. The destruction continues despite ceasefire and peace agreements, so it attracts less attention. But the end effect is the same.
Some four million Darfuris are now in need of humanitarian aid, according to the United Nations' Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, out of a population of between six and seven million. Some 2.5 million people have been forced from their homes, with most of them living in makeshift camps where sickness is rampant in Darfur and across the border in Chad.
Most Darfurians seeking refuge in camps for internally displaced people are women and children.
For further information, please contact:
ACT Communications Officer Callie Long (mobile/cell phone +41 79 358 3171) or
Caritas Internationalis Media Officer Nancy McNally (phone: +39 06 698 797 52)
[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]
