Drawing by nine year old artist

Darfur Humanitarian Emergency (a State Dept./IIP webpage)

29 November 2005

(Art exhibition showcases drawings of young people from devastated region)

By Christine A. Terada
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- An exhibition of drawings by children from Sudan's war-torn Darfur region presents a novel view of the ongoing strife there.

"Darfur Drawn: The Conflict of Darfur Through Children's Eyes," is sponsored by Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life and Human Rights Watch, two organizations that are seeking to raise public awareness of the continuing conflict.  The exhibition is on display from November 28 to January 20 at the Ann Loeb Bronfman Arts Pavilion at Hillel headquarters in Washington.

"Hillel is working with groups like Human Rights Watch to raise awareness about the ongoing atrocities in Darfur not only because it is a humanitarian outrage, but because the Jewish people are all too familiar with the effects of genocide," said Hillel International President Avraham Infeld in a press release on the exhibition.  "We cannot say 'never again' in reference to the Holocaust if we sit on the sidelines today."

Conflict in Sudan's western Darfur region has resulted in as many as 180,000 deaths and has displaced millions in the past three years.

The project began in February, when Human Rights Watch researchers visited several refugee camps in Chad and the Chadian-Sudenese border town of Tine to conduct interviews on the conflict.  To keep children occupied while interviewing their parents, researchers Annie Sparrow and Olivier Bercault handed out crayons and notebook paper.

The 27 drawings that resulted, collected from 8- to 17-year-olds, depict the heartbreaking violence in the region through the children's eyes.  The children received no instruction from the researchers; the drawings they produced portrayed helicopters raiding villages and people dying on the streets.  Accompanying the drawings in the exhibition are narratives given by the artists.

Taha, age 13 or 14, drew a picture of helicopters bombing the village after school was finished for the day.  The child recalls in the narrative watching a mother carrying her baby before she is shot and killed.  "Now my nights are hard because I feel frightened," the child told Human Rights Watch.  "I cannot forget the bad images of the burning houses and fleeing at night because our village was burned."

Another young artist portrayed a sibling holding a book, explaining that he was sad because he would not be able to learn because the school building had been destroyed.

Leila, age 9, drew her hut burning after it was bombed and a dead woman, explaining that she colored the woman's face red because she had been shot in the face.

Thirteen-year-old Ala portrayed a rebel soldier being executed by the armed marauders known as the Jingaweit.

Though the drawings might be just stick figures, they portray personal accounts of tragedy and serve as a reminder that violence is ingrained in the memories of the children of Darfur.

Hillel, the largest Jewish student organization in the world, is among the leading college organizations raising awareness about the violence in Sudan and lobbying for government action.

Human Rights Watch, an organization dedicated to protecting human rights worldwide, conducts fact-finding investigations into human rights abuses in all regions of the world.

For additional information on the conflict, see Darfur Humanitarian Emergency.