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BY MARTHA MARRAZZA

In print | Published February 23, 2006

Dr. Jerry Ehrlich, an area pediatrician and member of Doctors without Borders, joined Fatima Haroun, a Darfurian activist in the Philadelphia region who works with the Darfur Rehabilitation Project and the Sudan Peace Advocates Network, in Cunniff Hall on Tuesday for a talk organized by Swarthmore Sudan entitled “Visions of Genocide, Witnesses from Darfur.”

Ruach, SASA and the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies co-sponsored the discussion, which was attended by students, professors and others from the Swarthmore community. Haroun spoke from her firsthand knowledge of the region and gave background on the current conflict, while Ehrlich discussed his recent experience as a doctor in Darfur.

In his opening remarks, Joel Mittleman ‘09, a member of Swarthmore Sudan who organized the event, urged audience members to act on the information they were about to learn. "It’s incredible you came out this evening to learn. Now the second step is to take action," he said. “We will be tabling in Parrish for National Call-In Day, so stop by, make a phone call to your representative. There are many other things going on.”

Mittleman said he organized the event to educate and inspire students who were concerned with the genocide raging in Darfur. “My motivation to organize this talk was that I got a sense that a lot of people within Swarthmore Sudan and on campus were concerned about the situation, maybe heard about the terrible things that were going on, but thought it was complicated and hard to break into,” he said. “I thought if we had a big event with two experts who could offer a compelling and comprehensive picture of what’s going on, it could reach out to people who maybe don’t have the background on the crisis. It’s the first step in mobilizing a bigger community of Darfur activists on campus.”

Haroun depicted Darfur, Sudan as a region plagued by violence and genocide, with the Sudanese government and government-armed Janjaweed militias mainly attacking Africans. “There are terrible violations of human rights happening in a country called Sudan, in the region of western Sudan called Darfur,” she said. “Unfortunately, people are victims of terrorists who kill and devastate others for no reason. We have a very dictatorial regime that is trying to take resources from people and marginalize others.”

Although an estimated 400,000 people have died and 2 million people have been displaced due to the violence in Darfur, Haroun said the government often prevents members of the media from glimpsing the extent of the conflict. “When survivors of an attack run toward the capital toward government troops, police chase them back,” she said. “They don’t want them in the city because if they see a reporter or someone from the US or UN, it looks bad. So, most go back away from the city to an area that’s very dry, and most die from hunger or thirst.”

Haroun laid out the choices that many Africans face in sobering terms. “You have two choices: you can stay where you live and be killed, or you have to leave,” she said. “We have refugees who are in Chad and neighboring countries now and are asking after two years if they can go back. But they say they will never go back if that precedent [of violence] is still the precedent.”

After Haroun spoke for about 30 minutes, Ehrlich gave his talk centered on slides featuring photographs and drawings that he illegally collected while in Darfur.

“When I went to Darfur, I took 20 boxes of crayons and about 400 pieces of drawing paper. I gave them out to children at random, which was extraordinarily illegal,” Ehrlich said. “I hid the drawings in my daypack, and I didn’t even look at them until I got back to New Jersey. I think it’s obvious from the pictures with fire, people dead, people running and bombs that this is what children are growing up with.”

Many of the pictures depicted makeshift refugee camps, hospitals and patients that Ehrlich encountered. “Many of the children were severely malnourished. It was almost like a child with HIV/AIDS. Because of the severe malnutrition, the immune systems of children were vulnerable,” Ehrlich said. “Their lungs were susceptible. We had to be careful with IVs because sometimes their kidneys couldn’t even handle salt and water. When people were dragged around the desert for days, the kids were the ones who were really hit.”

Ehrlich said he observed similar behavior among the parents of sick or dying children. “Many mothers had post-traumatic stress disorder,” he said. “We don’t know what she’s seen, lived with or been subjected to. I saw this over and over again. It’s going to take a long time to heal or cure.”

In his final remarks, Ehrlich urged the audience to take action. “As we speak, Darfur continues. It’s up to young audiences, young people like you. Maybe my time is gone as a volunteer. But you, you’re the future and you can make a difference,” he said.

The talk concluded with a question and answer period where audience members further probed Ehrlich and Haroun about their experiences in Darfur. As listeners left Cunniff Hall, members of Swarthmore Sudan encouraged them to sign postcards or pick up other information regarding the genocide in Darfur.

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