Darfur Crisis: A Selected Bibliography: Narratives

The major aim of this book is to look into the conflict that is taking place in the Sudan, and to bring attention to the “humanitarian disaster” that as resulted from this crisis. The book is divided into two parts. The first part consists of essays by Sudanese academics in which that bring light on the situation in Darfur. Papers are presented by Abdel Ghaffar, M. Ahmed, Musa Adam Abdel-Jalil, Atta El-Battahani and Mustafa Babiker. The second part offers discussions that took place at a meeting held in Addis Abeba, July 25 and 26, 2005.

Academy award winning actor Don Cheadle and activist John Predergast, senior advisor to the International Crisis Group, and former official in the Bill Clinton White House, provides a narrative on their experiences visiting Darfur, Northern Uganda, and Chad. They were able to get testimonies from Darfurian refugees in which they were told how the Sudanese Army and the Janjaweed militias targeted Darfurians for extermination. In addition, they also reported on mass killings, and mass destruction of villages where signs of life was not present.

This book offers a first hand account of what the title implies, “growing up in Darfur.” The author of the book Abdullahi Osman El-Tom, was born in Broosh, Dafur in 1954. El-Tom offers the reader a view of Darfur before the current crisis. He writes about the interaction he had with family, community members and friends. What it was like to go to school, and practice his religion, Islam. However towards the end of the book he paints a far different picture of war and destruction.

This book provides a first hand account of life in Darfur by a native of Darfur, who escaped the attack on his village, and ended up in refugee camps in Chad where he served as a translator for western media outlets like The New York Times, NBC, and the BBC, as well as the United Nations and other aid groups. One of his aims was to inform the world the genocide that was taking place in Darfur.

A team of three western film makers traveled to Darfurian refugee camps in eastern Chad, and across the border into Darfur to capture the first hand accounts of Darfurians who had been displaced.