Petition from Darfur

In 2007, a member of the Article 1 team brought back the first ever petition of Darfuri refugees from the Chadian camps on the border of Sudan, where hundreds of thousands of Darfuris have escaped to avoid massacre at the hands of the Sudanese Government and Janjaweed militias.

The petition and the testimonials scrawled alongside the names, call on the international community to intervene to stop the killings and restore peace and justice to Darfur so that the survivors can return home.

It has been signed by over 60,000 refugees, 70% of whom are women and therefore constitutes the largest expression of women’s voices to come out of the region.

This petition is the true voice of the Darfuri people, who, frustrated with their leaders felt that for the first time they could communicate their desperation and the horror of their experiences directly to decision makers in the West. Without assistance from any foreign agency, they generated the energy within the camps to collect thousands of signatures and two months later sent 30,000 petitions to Article 1’s London Office, which have since been translated.

“We the mothers…”

The petition brings together the pleas of over 40,000 Darfuri women, many of whom have seen their husbands and children murdered and have been raped themselves.

Not only is it a complete cultural anathema for these women to take political action, but they have risked their lives in doing so. Signing their names poses an enormous threat to their safety. However, they have chosen to do so with the knowledge of possible repercussions but in desperate determination to have their voices heard by those at the UN and the leaders of Western countries.

One testimonial included in the petition reads:

“We the mothers want them (the UN peacekeepers) to enter Darfur immediately. They have displaced us, and killed us, and raped us in front of our children and husbands. They killed our children and burnt our houses. This was all done by the Janjaweed in our homeland.”

“They [the Janjaweed] stole our money, raped our daughters, humiliated us and displaced us”

Reading the first-hand testimonials gives those in the West a sense of the confusion and despair that haunts these mothers who see the violence that they have escaped in Sudan creeping across the borders and into the refugee camps in Chad.

“Why does the government still ask for more time which gives them the chance to kill more people while the UN has not made a move yet? Why is the International Community still keeping quiet although the Darfur disaster is the worse human disaster, but we all hear about Palestine and Iraq? Does the International Community support what is going on? Do they agree with Omar Bashir that blacks are worthless? Why have they not done anything yet while everyday many women are being raped and many people are being killed and not only in Sudan, but also in Chad? Why did the forces interfere in Lebanon after one month of war there but not here? Where shall the refugees go when they are being attacked in eastern Chad now? I ask the International community to take action immediately.”