09 December 2006

Early Sunday for Darfur


BBC's Newsnight programme carried the appalling experiences of a Sudanese doctor, who for inexplicable reasons has been refused asylum in Britain.

"DARFUR

Since 2003, some 200,000 people have been killed in Darfur.

Another 2m have been driven out of their homes. Yet the world's attention is elsewhere.

Sunday is a Global Day for Darfur, focusing on the appalling incidence of rape and other sexual violence which is the hallmark of the rebel Janjaweed militias.

Kofi Annan today promised to make the crisis his top priority for the remainder of his time at the helm of the United Nations.

But in the meantime, a whole generation has been brutalised.

Tonight, we have moving testimony from a Darfuri woman who has horrific experiences of the very worst of the conflict.

Not only did she witness the violent gang rape of a group of girls - some as young as eight years old - by the Janjaweed, she also was repeatedly raped herself by Sudanese government security men.

She believes there is not one woman in Darfur who has not suffered a similar fate.

Eventually finding her way to the UK, she has now been told her application for asylum has been refused, and she must return to Khartoum.

She tells us she'd rather return to her village, and die with her people, than go there."

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