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Welcome students! We are glad you are visiting our website to learn about Darfur. You will find many facts about Darfur here, and we will try our best to explain what is happening in that part of the world. You will learn about lots of bad things being done to people who did not do anything wrong. You will be faced with hard questions that might be hard to think about, like what does it feel like to be chased out of your home? How would you feel if you were separated from the rest of your family, or watched some of your family members be killed? Since we would not want any of these things to happen to us, we should try our hardest to keep them from happening to other people. Step 1 is to learn about it, so read on!

What is Darfur?
Darfur is a state in the country of Sudan. Sudan is the largest country in all of Africa. About 40 million people live in Sudan, 6-7 million in Darfur (no one is really sure). Sudan has many neighbors, including Egypt, Chad and the Central African Republic. The capital of Sudan is Khartoum, which sits on the Nile River, a very important resource for Sudan. Click here to see a map of Sudan.

What is happening in Darfur?
The government of Sudan is killing its own citizens! Ever since 2003, the government, led by president Omar Hassan al-Bashir, has been hiring groups of killers called the Janjaweed to go into the Darfur region of Sudan and kill not only men, but also women and kids! They also make the women and girls do horrible things that they should never have to do. The Janjaweed fly planes and drop bombs on the villages, burn down houses, ride cars and horses into villages and shoot people, and make them move away from their homes. They also keep these people from getting food so that they starve to death. Their goal is to kill every single person in Darfur. Think about it: That's like President Bush hiring gangs to come in and kill everyone in Indiana! Only you couldn't run away to another state, because no other states will let you in. What would you do? What would you feel like if your own government was trying to kill you, and no other place would let you live in their country?

The lives of the Darfuri people have been totally changed. Before the attacks, the people lived together with their families, just like normal. The kids went to school, did chores, and played together. The grown-ups worked and did chores, made dinner for the family, told exciting stories. Before, life in Darfur was not as easy as it has been for many kids in America, but it was similar to a normal kid's life in many ways. Now, things are very different. Kids have been ripped from their families. Some have watched their parents or brothers or sisters be killed. Most days, the people have very little food to eat (if they have any at all). Some are even dying because they go so long without eating or having fresh water to drink. All of the people's possessions have been left behind, so they don't have clean clothes to change into or their favorite thing to play with.

Some people in other countries have heard about what is happening in Darfur and they have sent money to buy food, clothes, protection from the killers, or whatever people need. But the government blocks the food and good things from getting to the Darfuri people.

Why is the government of Sudan killing its own people?
No one is really sure, but we think it comes down to two simple reasons, which you probably learned about in kindergarten. Number 1: The government does not want to share. Number 2: The government does not like people who have darker skin than they do.

Reason #1: They don't want to share
The government of a country gets millions and millions of dollars every year, and they are supposed to use it to do things like build roads and schools, protect their country, and make sure citizens have the things they need to work hard and have a happy life. The government gets this money in many ways. For example, it gets a lot from its own citizens through taxes (you may hear adults grumbling about taxes a lot). If it is a poor country like Sudan, it gets money from other countries. It also gets money by selling valuable things found in that country, and the most valuable thing found in Sudan is oil. Sudan makes a lot of money by selling oil to China.

What has happened for many, many years in Darfur is that when the government gets all this money, they do not share with Darfur. So Darfur does not usually have enough money to build things like roads and schools and other things its citizens need. In 2003, the Darfuri people finally got mad and tried to attack a couple government offices in Darfur, demanding that they share. President al-Bashir got really mad and hired the Janjaweed to kill everyone in Darfur for wanting him to share.

Reason #2: They are prejudiced
Sudan is ruled by Arab people, people whose ancestors were from the Middle East. Their skin is lighter than the types of people who live in Darfur (their ancestors are black Africans). For some reason, the government of Sudan thinks people who have lighter skin are smarter and better than the people who have darker skin, and have even gone so far as to try to kill all the darker-skinned people living in Darfur. Not liking people based on their skin color is like saying, "People who wear green shirts are smarter than people who wear orange shirts." Why would that matter? This is an example of prejudice.

Prejudice is when you believe you are better than someone based on things people cannot control, like the color of their skin, the color of their eyes or hair, how short or tall they are, if they look like you or not. Prejudice is wrong, and it makes people hate each other and do mean things to each other. We should judge people based on how they act toward us, not based on what they look like or rumors we have heard about them.

Prejudice was one of the causes of the Holocaust, a time in history (1939-1945) when a group of Germans called Nazis murdered 11 million people. You can find out more about the Holocaust on this website. Prejudice also caused hundreds of thousands of people in the African country of Rwanda to be murdered in 1994. As you can see, prejudice is a very dangerous problem in our world.

How can we help the people of Darfur?
We have to make the government stop the killing, and let workers go into Darfur to give food, water, medicine, and other important things. We could tell the government of Sudan that we care about the people of Darfur, and we think what they are doing is wrong. So far, though, telling the government this has not helped because they have told us through their actions that they do not care if the world thinks they are evil. All the government cares about is themselves, their money, and their power. So we have to hit them where it hurts. And there is one country that can help us do this: China.

Remember that oil is the most valuable thing found in Sudan? Well, the Chinese government buys more oil from Sudan than any other country in the world. By buying all this oil, China's government has become good friends with Sudan's government. In fact, China gives the Sudanese government most of the weapons it uses to kill the people of Darfur! If we could get China to stop giving Sudan weapons and to stop buying oil from Sudan, President al-Bashir and his friends in the government would become poor and wouldn't have any more weapons to do the killing!

How can we get the Chinese government to stop helping the Sudanese government kill people?
Right now, China is planning a huge party for later this summer. Have you ever been around your parents when they are trying to get ready for a party at your house? They want you to help them get the cobwebs out of the corners of the room, dust off the furniture, sweep and mop the floor, get your dirty socks out of the bathroom, and be on your best behavior...all because they really want people to think they are a great family with a nice house.

China's big party is called the Summer Olympics. It will be held in Beijing, China, later this year and the whole world will be watching. China wants everyone to think it is a great country and one of the best leaders in the world. If we sent 100,000 letters to China telling them to stop supporting the killing, we could be in the news! If everyone heard about it on the news and was mad at China, China would be really embarrassed! That's like pulling the cushions off the sofa at your parents' party to show everyone the crumbs and dirt underneath! If China was really embarrassed, they might just stop buying Sudan's oil and giving them weapons! Then the people of Darfur would start being safe again!

Write a letter to China telling them how badly they are behaving, then send it to us at CANDLES Holocaust Museum in Terre Haute, Indiana. We will take them to the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C. on May 1, which is Holocaust Remembrance Day--a day when we think about 11 million people dying because of prejudice. For more information about how to write a letter, click here.

Dear Friends:

We are extremely grateful to those of you who participated in our recent "Letters for Darfur" campaign. We had no idea what to expect when we set our goal of 100,000 letters, but we knew we had to do something for the people of Darfur. We ultimately received about 4,000 letters from the US and Canada, which included 17 different states and 60 schools from Maine to Texas to British Columbia. The letters were powerful and provocative.

True to our word, we attempted to deliver the letters in person to the Chinese Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York on June 19 and to the Chinese Embassy in Washington DC on June 20. Not surprisingly, we were unceremoniously turned away by Chinese officials at both places.

In New York, a Chinese man came out of the locked building to ask us the nature of our business. We were explaining to him what these letters were and why they were written, but he refused them and told us we could not leave the boxes of letters on their steps. New York Police arrived almost immediately after we did to tell us we could not leave the boxes and we would have to do something else with them. We went to a local FedEx Kinko's to ship the boxes to the Chinese Mission, hoping they would accept them if they were presented by the FedEx courier. No luck--they were refused again and returned to us here in Indiana.

In Washington, we stood outside the embassy for about 90 minutes, holding signs of protest and reading the letters aloud. We were not able to stand directly outside the embassy to protest because recent protesters had vandalized the building. So we did our demonstrating across the street, then took all the letters to the front door in hopes they would grant us entry to deliver the letters. Again, no luck--they refused to let us in. Just as in New York, we went to a local FedEx station and shipped the letters to the embassy. This time, they were accepted!

We hope the officials in DC read the letters and were impacted by them. But in any case, we should not measure the success of our efforts by the immediate results. In this situation, when we are confronting such a large, international network of dehumanizing policy, our obligation is to unmask the evil, bear witness to it, and name it for what it is.

We thank you all for helping us in this process. We are encouraged in our work to know there are so many concerned and passionate young people. We are currently considering publishing the New York letters in book form, with proceeds to benefit Darfuri refugees. CANDLES is also considering another Darfur project on the horizon, so stay tuned! We have posted a couple of photos on this page, but see our Photo Gallery for more.