April 2005 - אֲדָר ב׳ .. נִיסָן תשס״ה Adar II..Nisan 5765

As we approach Pesach with its message of freedom and redemption, my heart and mind are drawn to the catastrophe in the Darfur region of western Sudan. I mentioned the tragedy in Darfur in my Yom Kippur sermon, but the situation gets worse and worse daily. Hundreds of thousands have been murdered in this genocidal war of the Sudanese government against her own citizens.

A preventable humanitarian crisis is raging in the Darfur region of western Sudan. Not since the Rwanda genocide of 1994 has the world seen such a calculated campaign of slaughter, rape, starvation and displacement. Government-backed militias, known collectively as the Janjaweed, are systematically eliminating entire communities of African tribal farmers. Villages are being razed, women and girls raped and branded, men and boys murdered, and food and water supplies targeted and destroyed. Victims report that government air strikes frequently precede militia raids.

The effects of this ethnic cleansing campaign have been devastating. It is estimated that at least 200,000 people have died. More than 1.6 million people have been displaced from their homes and over 200,000 have fled across the border to Chad. Many now live in camps lacking adequate food, shelter, sanitation, and health care. Women and girls who leave the camps to gather much needed firewood risk being attacked and raped by Janjaweed patrolling the countryside.

On February 25, 2005, Human Rights Watch, and Oxfam reported that the Darfur atrocities are continuing. New eyewitness accounts from Darfur of rapes, torture and mutilation by government-backed militias underscore how the U.N. Security Council must take urgent action to protect civilians and punish the perpetrators, Human Rights Watch said on Friday. Peter Takirambudde, Africa director at Human Rights Watch, urged a Security Council referral to the International Criminal Court, saying, “This would deter the Sudanese authorities from committing even more atrocities.”

The international aid agency Oxfam, said the African Union's mission in Sudan's Darfur region is understaffed, poorly financed and ill equipped to cope with the scale of the crisis. Please read the articles: http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2005/02/25/darfur10212.htm http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L27449218.htm

As Jews we cannot say about the Holocaust, “never again!” and then ignore the suffering of the South Sudanese people in Darfur. We must lend our voices and our efforts to back up our convictions, and stand up for the persecuted BECAUSE no one stood up for us when we needed the world. Please check out the website http://www.savedarfur.org/, and make a personal commitment to make a difference. Please write to the President, our senators and our congressional representatives, and demand that the United States intervene and end the slaughter. We can do no less.

—Rabbi Harry A. Manhoff, Ph.D., D.D.

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