In 1994 an estimated 800,000 people died in 100 days. They were victims of the Rwandan genocide.
The Rwandan genocide victims were mostly Tutsi and the people doing the killing were Hutu, many of whom were members of the militia called Interahamwe.
“It’s sad, scary and bewildering to see a human show characteristics you normally associate with an animal” said Vital Akimana, a junior and a Rwandan native, of seeing a man at a road block with a machete in one hand and an AK-47 in the other screaming “We’re going to kill those cockroaches.” “I saw lost human beings,” she said. “After seeing that, there is nothing but a question mark.”
Despite years of tensions between the Hutu and Tutsi the international community has largely ignored the events in Rwanda.
The United Nations would not send in troops despite the pleas of Lieutenant-General Romeo Dellaire, a UN official in Rwanda..
Wealthier nations would not give aid, deeming the conflict a domestic matter.
In the past three years an estimated 200,000 people have died, victims of the Darfur conflict.
In the Darfur region of the Sudan, violence between the Janjaweed, an armed militia of nomadic herders, and non-Arabic tribes has caused the destruction of villages, the rape of women, the murder of innocent people, the destruction of families and two million displaced people.
People displaced in camps lack the basic amenities, such as clean water, medicine and doctors, which many take for granted.
The conflict, like that in Rwanda, has been largely ignored by the international community. “I think it’s ironic that it’s been going on for so long and the United States has largely ignored it,” senior Sara Poznik said of the killing in Darfur.
In the past years, the UN, due to lack of funds, has left the crisis in Darfur to the African Union, but as of Aug. 31, the UN decided to send in more than 17,000 troops into the Darfur region.
The Sudanese government is against the UN taking over the role of the African Union. It has made its opposition to this transition obvious and offered the African Union an ultimatum which, according to The New York Times, is to “extend its mandate without handing off to the United Nations or pack up and leave by the end of the month.”
The African Union has recently declared that it has intentions to leave the Sudan if the Sudanese government does not agree to allow UN peacekeepers into the country by the end of the month.
If the African Union leaves and the UN is not there, the people of Darfur are doomed.
“They’re signaling the UN,” said chair of the political science department Ken Gilmore.
For all funding problems the UN has in the Sudan, some think they are better equipped to handle the situation than the African Union.
“The African Union does not have enough money and resources for the troops” said Peter Deng, a sophomore from the Southern region of the Sudan, “They are not as strong as the UN.”
If the Sudanese government refuses to allow UN troops in and the African Union leaves, it will leave many people vulnerable to attack, and will, according to The New York Times, “almost certainly open a bloody chapter in the conflict.”
“If these soldiers leave, we will all be slaughtered,” said Sheik Ali, a man who sought protection at an African Union camp after he fled his village, to The New York Times.
The fate of the people of Darfur currently hangs in the balance.
“Not a lot has surprised me since Rwanda, it won’t surprise me if the African Union does pull out, and it wouldn’t surprise me if no one responded,” Akimana said. “I’m just waiting to be proven wrong.”
If the African Union does leave and the UN is not deployed, we may certainly have another Rwanda on our hands. Victims of the Darfur conflict are sure of this possibility, Sheik Ali said ”What happened in Rwanda, it will happen here.”For more information regarding the conflict in Darfur, please go to Savedarfur.org.