Darfuri refugees say they face apathy, silence from most of their fellow Muslims
By Robert King
[email protected]
FORT WAYNE, Ind. -- They are devoted to Islam but increasingly skeptical of Muslims.
Related coverage
• Home in Indiana, hearts in Darfur
• Profiles of three Darfuri refugees
• Darfuri refugees say they face apathy, silence from most of their fellow Muslims
By the numbers
200,000 dead
People have died because of the conflict, including from illness and malnutrition.
2 million refugees
People have been forced out of their homes
3.4 million need aid
More than half the population of Darfur who now rely on international aid.
4 of 10 don't get aid
People who need help aren't getting it because fighting and banditry make it too hard to reach them, the United Nations estimates.
Want to know more?
A new multimedia project of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and Google Earth documents the genocide in Darfur. Viewers can zoom in on a map where red flames show a destroyed village and video, photographs and witness testimony tell individual stories. Go to the Google Earth Web site and choose "Crisis in Darfur." You may need to download software. It's free. Click the green button "Download Google Earth" in the upper right hand corner of the page.
NPR.org has a collection of stories that provide background and updates on the crisis. On the NPR Web Site, type "Darfur" into the search field.
The U.S. State Department has a publication, "Documenting Atrocities in Darfur," that highlights incidents and provides statistics of the conflict. You can view it by visiting the State Department Web site.
Darfur: A Short History of a Long War, by Julie Flint and Alex de Waal, has been recommended by New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof as the best introduction to the conflict (176 pages, $17.63 for paperback on Amazon.com)
To donate
United States Fund for UNICEF
333 East 38th Street, New York, NY 10016; (800) 486-4233; Web site
Doctors Without Borders
USA333 Seventh Avenue, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10001; (888) 392-0392; Web site
These charities were highly rated by Charity Navigator, founded as an unbiased charity evaluator. See more at the Charity Navigator Web site.
Take action
Save Darfur Coalition: A national alliance of more than 170 faith-based advocacy and humanitarian organizations. An Indiana branch coordinates statewide action and events to strengthen the efforts of community groups in South Bend, Fort Wayne, Indianapolis and Bloomington. Find a group near you via the national Web site.
This is the strange paradox Darfuri refugees in Fort Wayne are facing: A fundamentalist government in Sudan turned on them, and the Muslim world has largely stood by silently.
Here in Indiana, the Darfurians say, mosques and Muslim groups have offered little help. Abu Baker Suliman-Mahaht, 37, a recent Darfuri immigrant, says that when he needed money to pay for his wife's doctor visits, a mosque turned him down. A local church gave him the money.
Another Darfurian, Suliman A. Giddo, said groups such as the Islamic Society of North America, based in Plainfield, could have made a difference early in the conflict by calling on the Sudanese government to stop the killing. Instead, a delegation ISNA sent to Darfur in 2004 came back saying there was no sign of genocide.
The greatest irony for many Darfuri immigrants is who has helped: Jews and Christians.
Giddo, 44, said the Sudanese schools he attended taught that Jews and Christians were the enemies.
"I was excited to find out that the thing that everybody has in his mind is completely wrong. We found that we are respected here," said Giddo, co-founder and president of Darfur Peace & Development in Fort Wayne.
Christian churches and Jewish community leaders have offered humanitarian aid, such as paying medical bills; helped refugees through the process of gaining political asylum; and engaged in grass-roots activism and political lobbying on their behalf.
Beth Reilly, a Fort Wayne stay-at-home mother of three, became interested in Darfur after reading that children the same age as her own were being raped and killed in Darfur.
She asked her Methodist pastor to devote a Sunday to Darfur awareness, even taking an offering. Dozens of Methodist churches followed the example, and a movement was born: the Indiana Coalition to Save Darfur.
The Rev. Joe Johns of Fellowship Missionary Church in Fort Wayne first tuned in to the developing tragedy in Darfur when a friend introduced him to some local Darfurians over coffee at Starbucks. Eventually, he would make two trips to Darfur.
"This isn't just a world away," Johns said. "This is business that is in our own backyard."
That was never clearer than on Johns' second visit to Darfur. In a dusty desert village, he found the father of a Darfurian he had met in Fort Wayne and had the man sign an affidavit confirming his son's story of torture and persecution, which might help his asylum case.
The man said he never expected to see his son again and asked Johns to look after him.
"He bequeathed his son to me and basically said, 'Now you are a father for my son,' " Johns recalled. "It is something that is pretty meaningful to me."
Local Jewish leaders have publicly likened the genocide in Darfur to the Holocaust in Nazi Germany, and worked vigorously for a bill requiring Indiana to divest its pension money from companies doing business with Sudan's government.
The Darfurians say Muslim apathy is due to racism and that Arab Muslims see black African Muslims as inferior. They also say Muslim governments don't want to accuse another Islamic government of mass murder.
Local Muslim leaders agree that the Islamic world has done little to end the crisis in Darfur. But they say the situation is not about racism. They say the problem is systemic.
"Now that we have built our mosques and our schools, we really need to build a social services infrastructure so that we can reach out to people that are poor and needy within our community," said Shariq Siddiqui, executive director of the Muslim Alliance of Indiana.
ISNA joined the Save Darfur Coalition in December 2005, a year and a half after it formed. And Muneer Fareed, ISNA's secretary general, calls the situation there a tragedy. But Giddo and other Darfurians in Fort Wayne don't understand what took so long.
"If from day one all the Muslim communities, especially here in the United States, had stood up and said, 'We are Muslims, and we don't want your Muslim country to kill your own Muslims,' that may have made a lot of difference," Giddo said.
"Instead, we the people of Darfur paid that price."
By Robert King
[email protected]
FORT WAYNE, Ind. -- They are devoted to Islam but increasingly skeptical of Muslims.
Related coverage
• Home in Indiana, hearts in Darfur
• Profiles of three Darfuri refugees
• Darfuri refugees say they face apathy, silence from most of their fellow Muslims
By the numbers
200,000 dead
People have died because of the conflict, including from illness and malnutrition.
2 million refugees
People have been forced out of their homes
3.4 million need aid
More than half the population of Darfur who now rely on international aid.
4 of 10 don't get aid
People who need help aren't getting it because fighting and banditry make it too hard to reach them, the United Nations estimates.
Want to know more?
A new multimedia project of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and Google Earth documents the genocide in Darfur. Viewers can zoom in on a map where red flames show a destroyed village and video, photographs and witness testimony tell individual stories. Go to the Google Earth Web site and choose "Crisis in Darfur." You may need to download software. It's free. Click the green button "Download Google Earth" in the upper right hand corner of the page.
NPR.org has a collection of stories that provide background and updates on the crisis. On the NPR Web Site, type "Darfur" into the search field.
The U.S. State Department has a publication, "Documenting Atrocities in Darfur," that highlights incidents and provides statistics of the conflict. You can view it by visiting the State Department Web site.
Darfur: A Short History of a Long War, by Julie Flint and Alex de Waal, has been recommended by New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof as the best introduction to the conflict (176 pages, $17.63 for paperback on Amazon.com)
To donate
United States Fund for UNICEF
333 East 38th Street, New York, NY 10016; (800) 486-4233; Web site
Doctors Without Borders
USA333 Seventh Avenue, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10001; (888) 392-0392; Web site
These charities were highly rated by Charity Navigator, founded as an unbiased charity evaluator. See more at the Charity Navigator Web site.
Take action
Save Darfur Coalition: A national alliance of more than 170 faith-based advocacy and humanitarian organizations. An Indiana branch coordinates statewide action and events to strengthen the efforts of community groups in South Bend, Fort Wayne, Indianapolis and Bloomington. Find a group near you via the national Web site.
This is the strange paradox Darfuri refugees in Fort Wayne are facing: A fundamentalist government in Sudan turned on them, and the Muslim world has largely stood by silently.
Here in Indiana, the Darfurians say, mosques and Muslim groups have offered little help. Abu Baker Suliman-Mahaht, 37, a recent Darfuri immigrant, says that when he needed money to pay for his wife's doctor visits, a mosque turned him down. A local church gave him the money.
Another Darfurian, Suliman A. Giddo, said groups such as the Islamic Society of North America, based in Plainfield, could have made a difference early in the conflict by calling on the Sudanese government to stop the killing. Instead, a delegation ISNA sent to Darfur in 2004 came back saying there was no sign of genocide.
The greatest irony for many Darfuri immigrants is who has helped: Jews and Christians.
Giddo, 44, said the Sudanese schools he attended taught that Jews and Christians were the enemies.
"I was excited to find out that the thing that everybody has in his mind is completely wrong. We found that we are respected here," said Giddo, co-founder and president of Darfur Peace & Development in Fort Wayne.
Christian churches and Jewish community leaders have offered humanitarian aid, such as paying medical bills; helped refugees through the process of gaining political asylum; and engaged in grass-roots activism and political lobbying on their behalf.
Beth Reilly, a Fort Wayne stay-at-home mother of three, became interested in Darfur after reading that children the same age as her own were being raped and killed in Darfur.
She asked her Methodist pastor to devote a Sunday to Darfur awareness, even taking an offering. Dozens of Methodist churches followed the example, and a movement was born: the Indiana Coalition to Save Darfur.
The Rev. Joe Johns of Fellowship Missionary Church in Fort Wayne first tuned in to the developing tragedy in Darfur when a friend introduced him to some local Darfurians over coffee at Starbucks. Eventually, he would make two trips to Darfur.
"This isn't just a world away," Johns said. "This is business that is in our own backyard."
That was never clearer than on Johns' second visit to Darfur. In a dusty desert village, he found the father of a Darfurian he had met in Fort Wayne and had the man sign an affidavit confirming his son's story of torture and persecution, which might help his asylum case.
The man said he never expected to see his son again and asked Johns to look after him.
"He bequeathed his son to me and basically said, 'Now you are a father for my son,' " Johns recalled. "It is something that is pretty meaningful to me."
Local Jewish leaders have publicly likened the genocide in Darfur to the Holocaust in Nazi Germany, and worked vigorously for a bill requiring Indiana to divest its pension money from companies doing business with Sudan's government.
The Darfurians say Muslim apathy is due to racism and that Arab Muslims see black African Muslims as inferior. They also say Muslim governments don't want to accuse another Islamic government of mass murder.
Local Muslim leaders agree that the Islamic world has done little to end the crisis in Darfur. But they say the situation is not about racism. They say the problem is systemic.
"Now that we have built our mosques and our schools, we really need to build a social services infrastructure so that we can reach out to people that are poor and needy within our community," said Shariq Siddiqui, executive director of the Muslim Alliance of Indiana.
ISNA joined the Save Darfur Coalition in December 2005, a year and a half after it formed. And Muneer Fareed, ISNA's secretary general, calls the situation there a tragedy. But Giddo and other Darfurians in Fort Wayne don't understand what took so long.
"If from day one all the Muslim communities, especially here in the United States, had stood up and said, 'We are Muslims, and we don't want your Muslim country to kill your own Muslims,' that may have made a lot of difference," Giddo said.
"Instead, we the people of Darfur paid that price."