Entire Darfur village of 55,000 flees after raids by Janjaweed gunmen

[ECH1969]

Exhausted refugees were building ramshackle shelters in a dry river bed yesterday after 55,000 people fled a raid mounted by the Janjaweed militia in the Sudanese province of Darfur.

It was the biggest movement of refugees there so far this year. The victims, many of whom have fled attacks twice or even three times before, are camped around the town of Menawashi in southern Darfur.

They abandoned the nearby town of Mershing after two attacks from the pro-regime militia in the space of eight hours last Tuesday.

Evidence suggests that Sudan's security forces colluded with the Arab raiders.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/02/04/wsudan04.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/02/04/ixworld.html

[tularetom]

1. Is it just me or

does the word "janjaweed" bring something totally different to mind?

[Kagemusha]

2. There are 55,000 pop. villages?...

I'm not up to date on my taxonomy.

[Posteritatis]

7. Remember, people live in "towns" and "cities," Africans live in "villages"

Or something like that; I wasn't paying too much attention in Skewed Worldviews 101 at college.

It's kinda like how Europeans have "ethnic groups" while Africa has "tribes" instead.

Overall, one of the more impressively stupid bits of wordplay the media uses a lot.

[Adelante]

8. It was a refugee camp

Near a village.

[Kagemusha]

11. In the article it says the town of Mershing.

So I think the preceding poster had it right, really. The headline said village; the text said town...

[Adelante]

12. Whether town or village

The 55,000 were there in a refugee camp on the outskirts, is what I was getting at.

[Kagemusha]

14. Well it said the TOWN was abandoned...

The entire 55,000 of the TOWN picked up and fled. Now whether this is accurate I don't know. But what I saw was like, the entire population in that entire area picked up and fled while the fleeing was good...

I didn't read any implication people stayed behind.

[Adelante]

16. Fine, whatever you say

:hi:

[Pavulon]

3. Hotel Rwanda

Continues but no one even cares..

What is the quote from the movie. Not even N**gers, just africans. The world does not care.

[kineneb]

4. totally ignored by US gov

Why- No oil there. So they ignore this humanitarian disaster. :cry:

[cantstandbush]

9. They have no oil and they are black. n/t

[Adelante]

13. Darfur has oil

That's one of the reasons the government is getting away with murder.

[Virginia Dare]

5. Bet that didn't make the evening news..EOM

[Adelante]

6. Oh God

Will this never end? Will nobody help these poor suffering people?? :cry:

[evworldeditor]

10. A Scene out of the "Constant Gardner"

Just watched the DVD tonight and there's a scene of a small raid just like this happening near the end of the story. Really brings to life what would be too easy to dismiss as fiction. Good flick if you've not yet seen it. Fairly closely follows the novel by John Le Carre.

[slackmaster]

15. Mmmmmmmmmmmm, Janjaweed

:smoke:

[brentspeak]

17. The entire continent of Africa is a total hellhole

It's amazing that anyone can survive there.