RSVP to cocrsvp@ushmm.org or (202) 314-7818 Smallest Witnesses: One of today's gravest human rights and humanitarian crisis is in the western Sudanese region of Darfur, one of the poorest and most inaccessible regions in the world. On a recent mission to the refugee camps along Darfur's border with Chad, Human Rights Watch researchers, Dr. Annie Sparrow and Olivier Bercault, gave children pens and crayons to draw while their families were being interviewed. Without any instruction or guidance, the children began to draw scenes from their experiences of the war in Darfur: the attacks by the "Janjaweed", the bombings by Sudanese government forces, the shootings, the rapes, the burning of entire villages, and the flight to Chad. Young children from seven refugee camps and the border town of Tine shared drawings from their school notebooks with Human Rights Watch researchers. Scenes of animals and flowers depicting their ordinary village life were juxtaposed with horrible images of violence. The children insisted that Annie and Olivier take their drawings with them in the hope that the rest of the world could see their story—the indelible effect of a manmade crisis on its youngest victims. |