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Here at Enough, we often swap emails with interesting articles and feature stories that we come across in our favorite publications and on our favorite websites. We wanted to share some of these stories with you as part of our effort to keep you up to date on what you need to know in the world of anti-genocide and crimes against humanity work.
Enough Project Fellow Hawa Salih is featured in this story “Escape to Obscurity,” about life as a Darfuri refugee who has fled to America.
She was a natural leader, catapulted to where she was by the horrors she had witnessed. She knew she could be arrested for talking to me. She knew she could be arrested just for standing outside our house. But she didn’t care. It almost seemed she wanted to be arrested—to become a victim for her cause.
I thought to myself: What will happen to this woman? Will she ever leave Darfur? Little did we both know on that afternoon, one day Hawa would be living in a shelter in rural New Jersey. She would be scraping money to get by, hoping for a chance to win a scholarship to an American school. She would be lost in a world she did not know how to lead. After surviving a war and thriving in hell, Hawa would be ill-suited for a peaceful life.
According to the International Monetary Fund’s latest report, near-term economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to grow. The IMF projects economic growth of 5 ½ percent in 2013-2014, up ½ percent from 2012.
“Sub-Saharan Africa is now the second fastest–growing region in the world, trailing only emerging Asia,” the report states. However, “Domestic risks include adverse climate developments and internal conflict. These events, though potentially severe in their impact domestically and perhaps on close neighbors, usually do not have significant effects on the region as a whole.”
This video, “2013 Africa Progress Report: Equity in Extractives,” summarizes the “2013 African Progress Report,” focusing on how Africa’s mineral wealth can improve livelihoods. The report includes a great infographic “Mapping Africa’s Mineral Wealth: Selected Countries and Commodities,” which features DR Congo.
This week, humanitarian workers were evacuated from Pibor town in Jonglei State, South Sudan via U.N. helicopter due to rebel infighting. According the Refugees International blog, “Many of these aid workers wanted to stay, knowing that once they left there would be no one to witness the ongoing atrocities or prevent the government soldiers from looting humanitarian supplies. Now, however, Pibor has become a virtual ghost town, with most of the civilian population fleeing into the bush.”
As Sudan’s rainy season approaches, UNHCR is prepositioning aid for tens of thousands of Darfuri refugees in eastern Chad that have fled Darfur in the last few months due to recent clashes over gold mines in North Darfur.
To date, UNHCR has registered 28,278 Sudanese refugees in the Tissi area. They are settled across 16 sites within a 100 km radius. Most are herders moving frequently in search of pasture land and water for their livestock and this makes it extremely challenging to register and assist them.