Google Earth and the UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees) have added a new layer of refugee camps around the world - Chad, Darfur, Palestine, Western Sahara to name a few.

Google Earth’s new mapping programme takes you on a virtual reality tour with the UN refugee agency of some of the world’s major displacement crises and the humanitarian efforts aimed at helping the victims.

The first use of this geospatial tool focuses on refugees and displaced people located in remote areas of Chad, Iraq, Colombia and Sudan’s volatile Darfur region. Sit in front of your computer and, with a few clicks, see, hear and develop an emotional understanding of what it is like to be a refugee.

Highlighted are not only the physical area of the camp and surrounding country, but key parts of daily life such as education and health in photo, text and video format. Within seconds, Google Earth brings the daily life of a refugee camp into your home thousands of kilometres away. To start your journey, click here.

Haitham of Sabbah’s blog was initially very excited over the project until he realised that “NONE of the Palestinian refugee camps within the Occupied Palestinian Territories are published there”

Haitham suggests two possibilities for ignoring the Palestinian camps: there has been an end to Israeli occupation of Palestine and they forgot to tell the world; or possibly the UNHCR doesn’t recognise the Palestinian refugee camps. I wonder if there is something bordering on a conspiracy of silence going on here between Google and the UNHCR. We all know how strong the Israeli lobby is in the US so I don’t think it is beyond belief.

It is disturbing to see such a horrible mistake (intentional or unintentional, we need to know) spread by a UN agency which claims to be taking care of refugees all around the world. The UNRWA lists the name of all the refugees camps in West Bank (19 camp) and Gaza (8 camps) and their population (West Bank 486,479, Gaza 478,272, total 964,751). Not only that, but they also have location maps for these refugees camps on their website:

A petition has been created to ask Google Earth and UNHCR to correct the mistake and to include the Palestinian camps on the map. You can sign the petition here.

Links:
Google Earth map of Darfur atrocities
Silobreaker - Google maps various

Tags:

Google Earth
Refugee Camps

The NYT publishes a story that highlights the low status of Black people in the Middle East and one of the least discussed histories of Africa and the Arab speaking world, Arab-led slavery. This particularly report is about the Black Yemenis locally referred to as “Al Akhdam” [the root khadama to serve] a derogatory name which means servant. Black Yemenis are thought to have been soldiers originally from modern day Ethiopia and Eritrea during 600AD and settled after a failed invasion and have been slaves and servants ever since.

Set apart by their African features, they form a kind of hereditary caste at the very bottom of Yemen’s social ladder.

Degrading myths pursue them: they eat their own dead, and their women are all prostitutes. Worst of all, they are reviled as outsiders in their own country, descendants of an Ethiopian army that is said to have crossed the Red Sea to oppress Yemen before the arrival of Islam.

The Black Yemenis face discrimination on the basis of their African descent and are subject to massive human rights abuses, forced to live in segregated areas and only able to work in certain jobs.

I intend to return to the subject of Arab-led slavery particularly as it still exists today in Mauritania and the Sudan. Secondly Arab-led slavery and it’s present day legacy, is one of those discussions which is uncomfortable for some Africans and Arabs and one that has largely resulted in an unwritten conspiracy of silence. The discussion in Africa on whether to name the violence in Darfur as genocide has to some extent it’s origins in the historical relations between Arabs and Africans and how these are viewed by each group. A number of articles in Pambazuka News last year exemplified these relations - Professor Mahood Mamdani’s “The politics of naming: genocide, civil war, insurgency”, the response by Professor Kwesi Prah “The politics of apologetics: genocide denial, Darfur version” and “Dafur again“….. by Eva Dadrian and also on Black Looks, Andile Mngxitama’s article (also in response to Mamdani) “There is no genocide in Darfur“. One comment accused Mamdani and the responses to his piece as a “distraction from the real issue” as if African and Arab relations and the naming of the violence are not part of the “real issue” in Darfur and Sudan.

Links:
Yemen Observer

Tags:
Slavery
Yemen
Darfur
Genocid

Many acts of Gender Based Violence which could lead to contracting HIV/AIDS, are part of the daily experience for women in Darfur. As part of the 16 Days of Activism Against Violence Against Women, a short play on HIV/AIDs was performed in Abu Shouk refugee camp in North Darfur.

A short skit on HIV grips the attention of the audience; the HI virus, dressed in bright red and wearing what is intended to be a horrifying mask, warns of the doom that is sure to follow anyone who dares to take sexual risks.

The skit’s protagonist contracted HIV from a scheming ‘town’ girl, who, having discovered her own status, sets out to infect 150 men with HIV.

The message might be skewed, painting AIDS as a virtual death sentence and people living with the virus as malicious individuals intent on passing it on, but the performance also clearly demonstrates the key messages about HIV prevention and treatment…….

“Domestic violence, rape, sexual exploitation of children, forced marriage - they all have consequences, including death and HIV/AIDS,”

As the report points out, a play promoting awareness around HIV/AIDS would not have been possible in Darfur a few years ago and is certainly a positive move. However there are other aspects of the play that have a “skewed message”. It is a woman ” a scheming town girl” that is responsible for not only passing on the virus to the protagonist but who then chooses to “infect” 150 other men with HIV. In this way the play actually contradicts the reality of how HIV/AIDS is spread by putting the blame of transmission solely onto women.

Tags:

Gender Violence
HIV/AIDS
Darfur

The Sudanese government are holding 27 men believed to be “prisoners of conscience”. Amnesty International believe the men have been tortured and may be sentenced to death. The men are:

* Abdel Jalil al-Basha (m), Umma Reform and Renewal Party General Secretary
* Yaqoub Yahya (m), former army officer
* Kabbashi Khater Mohammed Ahmad (m), trader
* Tawer Osman Tawer (m), aged 58, former army officer
* Ahmad Salman (m), aged 35, secretary to Abdel Jalil al-Basha
* and 22 others held in Kober prison, Khartoum North, Sudan

The five men named above and 22 others are being held in the main section of Kober Prison in the capital, Khartoum. They were arrested on or soon after 14 July 2007 and have been tortured or ill-treated during prolonged incommunicado detention. A number of them have also been denied access to medical treatment.

All 27 defendants have been charged with a number of offences against the State including charges under Article 50 (Undermining the Constitutional System) and Article 51 (Waging War against the State) of the 1991 Penal Code. Both charges carry the possibility of the death penalty.

The so-called leader of the group, Mubarak al-Fadel al-Mahdi, President of the opposition Umma Reform and Renewal Party was released from prison on 1 December after charges against him were dropped. The General Secretary of the Party Abdel Jalil al-Basha remains in detention……….Continue

The men are all Sudanese and they are all Muslims. Who will come to their rescue? Will Muslim leaders from Britain’s Muslim community come to save them? Will Muslims stand outside the Sudanese embassy and carry placards saying “NOT IN OUR NAME”? Will the BBC, The Guardian and the The Sun print daily stories about what is happening to these men? Will thousands of British people march through the streets of London asking for their release? Will Friday prayers in Khartoum be followed by hundreds shouting for the release of the innocent? Will CNN make false reports about the numbers of people on the march eg hundreds instead of thousands or if it suits them, thousands instead of hundreds? - it doesn’t matter as long as the report serves the interest of the masters.

Who will save these men? Who will end death in Darfur?

Tags:
Darfur
Sudan
Prisoners of Conscience

I live in Europe where i can get free health care. But how do you feel safe when 2 more boys are killed by a police in Paris and within hours they are forgotten as the media and people start to talk of riots and burning car and the “the problem with these immigrants”.

Meanwhile the mainstream media and the public have for years ignored the Sudanese government and their responsibility for the atrocities and nightmares in Darfur, but all of a sudden because a British schoolteacher is jailed for 15 days everyone is up in arms with Brits flying over to Khartoum by the plane full.

But I dont think its safe to be in Europe any more but then its not safe anywhere if you are different unless you hide the truth and conform.

Tags:
Paris Riots
Sudan + School Teacher