Darfur is a region in the country of Sudan. The geocide there started in Febuary of 2003. It started because the government was accused of favoring the Arabs over the black people. Some equality and liberation groups were the ones who accused the government and they then decided to recrute non-Arab muslims from other ethic groups for their army. The government was also accused of trying to hide mass graves, and attacking and arresting journalists. There reason for doing this is so that there is very little coverage of what is going on in Darfur. The United States government thinks that this is a genocide, but the UN doesn't agree with them so not very much had been done so stop it. The United States says that they have a little back up if the 7,000 African Union troops that are there need help. Then UN has taken most of the responsibility on looking after refugee camps, so that is what they are doing. many argue that we could be doing so much more and that we need to now.
There's is another big dispute over the death toll too. The Sudan government said that there were only 19,500 deaths while other sources said it was 400,000 civilians. That's a really big difference. I think that government has something to hide. Back in 2004, one report said that the death toll was 50,000 people and that the next month it was 70,000. They then said that about 10,000 people each month died. Their government also said that those numbers include all of the people who died from malnutrion too. That may be true, but that is still a huge amount of people which is very sad. Also 51 peacekeepers were also killed as well. Another problem is rape. A lot of women and girls are now internally displaced persons (IDPs). It means that instead of leaving the country like thousands of others have, they have taken refuge inside of Darfur. When asked they all said that they have either been raped or no someone close to them who has been. People think that it mostly happens when they leave they camp to get firewood. All in all a totall number of people killed including civilans, soldiers, peacekeepers, and everyone else is 2,759,858 people.
I think this is so sad and absolutly terrible. I don't care how much you don't like someone there is no need for this. I just don't understand some people. I feel so bad that we haven't done almost anything to help. I feel so sorry for the people who have to go through this.
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