Posted on 07/31/2004 9:16:16 PM PDT by HAL9000
NYALA, Sudan - The boy doesn't wear shorts. He doesn't play with his friends. His heart wants to, but his legs won't let him. Only 12, Hussein Muhamed sits in the shade of his small hut, dressed in a pair of long khakis, a lost soul sidelined in a refugee camp full of them.
His scrawny legs are burned so deeply, from ankle to hip, that he hobbles like an old man - a grisly testament to the day government-backed militiamen called the janjaweed raided his village.
"They grabbed me and yelled: `You are the son of slaves'," recalled Hussein, who is lean and shy with dull, charcoal eyes. "Then, they threw me into the fire."
Of all the horrors being unveiled in the western province of Darfur, nothing is perhaps more disturbing than what's happening to children. Young girls are raped. Young boys abducted. Babies are hacked or shot.
Now, reports are emerging that Arab janjaweed are burning black African villagers alive, including many children, despite international demands on the Sudanese government to disarm the militias and prosecute its leaders.
Last week, African Union ceasefire observers reported that militiamen attacking the village of Suleia July 3 chained civilians and set them on fire. Two weeks ago, the militias mirrored the atrocities in the hamlet of Adwa, ordering children at gunpoint into burning huts, fleeing villagers told Knight Ridder.
"Children and babies grow," said Sheik Musa Muhamed, a tribal elder from Adwa who is not related to Hussein. "And when they grow they'll establish houses and families and make more generations. They want to destroy this generation. They want the land for themselves."
The violence is an outgrowth of a civil war pitting black African rebels against the Arab militias fighting on behalf of the Sudanese government, which denies it controls them. The militias have waged an ethnic cleansing campaign against villagers tribally linked to the rebels. The goal, in part, is to drive them away and use their farming lands as grazing areas for Arab herder communities.
As many as 30,000 have been killed, and more than a million displaced, spawning a refugee crisis. It's unknown how many children are among the dead or injured.
It is not clear that children are being targeted more than others, said Adele Khudr, the head of child protection in Sudan for the United Nations Children's Fund.
But what is certain, she said, is that children are the most vulnerable when the horseback militias gallop into villages, murdering, raping, pillaging.
Hussein remembers that he was seated in his classroom when the janjaweed, along with soldiers in trucks, stormed his village of Singite. As guns blazed, scores of children and teachers fled the school.
Hussein, six classmates, and a teacher hid in the classroom. A gang of janjaweed found them, and dragged them outside. Others started a fire.
They began chanting "Abid, Abid, Abid," Hussein said. It means slave.
Then they shot his teacher and threw his body into the flames. Next they pushed Hussein into the fire. "I felt pain in my legs, but there was no blood," said Hussein, running his thin fingers across his right calf.
In quick succession, the other children were thrown in, too. The janjaweed didn't wait to see them die, and when they left, the children scrambled out of the flames, with minor burns, except Hussein, the first one in. His legs were too swollen, and he fell, unconscious. A relative who had been hiding nearby, waiting for the janjaweed to leave, scooped him up.
Hussein was taken to a hospital in the nearby town of Kas, where he spent months recuperating from his burns. Four months ago, he and his mother arrived in Kalma, an overcrowded refugee camp near the town of Nyala.
"Nobody can believe I survived," said Hussein, whose round face is now scarred with blisters the size of marbles.
The burnings are continuing. A few miles away in the Otash refugee camp, seven villagers, all interviewed separately, described seeing children abducted and set on fire when the janjaweed attacked Adwa two weeks ago.
Kaltoma Ahmed, 16, described watching her six-year-old brother Adam die. "They tied the children's hands and feet," she said. "They put them in the house, and burned it to the ground."
Kaltoma Idris, 23, was inside her hut when the janjaweed arrived. Outside, her sister was boiling water on a small fire, her recently born twins next to her.
"The janjaweed came and took the water and poured it over the babies," recalled Idris, who stayed in the hut and kept silent. "They tied my sister up."
Idris fled out the back. As she ran for cover, she said she saw children being thrown into flaming huts. Two hours later, she returned to find her sister still tied up.
"The babies were dead inside the pot," said Idris.
She untied her sister. They took her babies and buried them near the hut. Her sister later told her she was whipped and gang raped twice.
Other villagers described returning and seeing charred bodies inside huts and strewn on the sandy dirt.
African Union ceasefire observers in Nyala confirmed there had been recent janjaweed attacks in the area of Adwa, a few miles east of the town of Duma. They said they would investigate.
U.N. and Western aid workers say the psychological impact of such violence could take a generation to heal. They know of children who twist and shake when they hear the sound of airplanes. It reminds them of the government aircraft that firebombed their villages. They know of children who now inexplicably wet their beds at night.
And when they are handed crayons and paper, they draw images of trucks carrying soldiers, airplanes, and bombs.
"They will remember it for a long time. They will suffer from it for a long time," said Khudr of UNICEF.
Hussein says he no longer has nightmares. He goes to school in the refugee camp. His favorite subject is mathematics. He wants to learn English someday.
Yet he is not recovered. The sun hurts his scarred skin. His cheeks still swell, slowing down his speech. But what hurts most is seeing his friends do what 12-year-old boys do.
"I liked to run. Now, I can't," Hussein said, his eyes dropping down to his legs. He paused, then added: "I haven't played since I was burned."
Someone please stop the planet so I can get off.
What is the UN doing to help these people?
Nothing,zip,nada.zero,bupkiss...........the UN doesn't give a rip.
What would Scary Kerry do? Oh wait he would go to the UN.
Surely that freeper forgot the sarcasm tag. The UN will be doing what they did in West Africa the UN sex for food programme!
Militias means Islamics, no?
Father God, if it is Your will, please rise up off Your throne and deliver these people from their tormentors Lord...please deliver these people from the animals that burn the children. In Christ's name I pray. Amen.
They're passing resolutions, of course.
I don't know the details, but apparently they're working on getting humanitarian aid delivered to Darfur, and getting Sudan to stop the killings.
http://www.intellectualconservative.com/article3483.html
UN Sex For Food Programme
Wouldn't surprise me if UN appointed Sudan to head their Human Rights commission.
That poster probably doesn't know anything about the situation,is all.
Yes,it does.
Sounds like Kerry's testimony of "burning villages".
"The janjaweed came and took the water and poured it over the babies," recalled Idris, who stayed in the hut and kept silent. "They tied my sister up."
Idris fled out the back. As she ran for cover, she said she saw children being thrown into flaming huts. Two hours later, she returned to find her sister still tied up.
"The babies were dead inside the pot," said Idris. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Speechless.
http://www.imnotsorry.net/news.htm
I don't go to church but I know a pattern when I see it.
Can anyone describe just one good thing that islam has brought to this world?
No worries. The French army is already massing at the Chad border. (Really)
Please let me know if you ever get an answer...
The UN would love to help, but they're too busy overseeing the prosecution of Americans who've made Arab prisoners wear underwear on their heads.
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