"An African Tragedy" Photos

The photos taken in Sudan of the Janjaweed showing the hurt they inflicted on their own people are appalling. In the first picture, the Janjaweed soldiers look young and this makes me wonder if they truly realize what they are doing. I assume that these young soldiers were put into training at an even younger age, and that killing and their other acts of violence were instilled in them as the "right way" in their most impressionable years. However, that is definitely not an excuse for their actions. Seeing the picture of the starving three year old who was just admitted into the Nutrition Center, I wonder how anyone could do this. Even if you have been raised to kill, there must be something deep in the hearts of the Janjaweed soldiers that tell them this is wrong. However, the soldiers may justify their actions because they feel they must support the government of their country. Or maybe they feel they have only two options: fight for the Janjaweed and live or fight against the Janjaweed and die.
When I look at the the starving people, it reminds me of Benson, in the novel They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky, when he was waiting for food and said, "[we were] weak with hunger, ribs collapsed in" (143 Benson Deng). He also described the refugees as being stick-like, and this is clearly shown in the photos. When I see these photos, it makes me fully grasp that the stories in They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky are not imagined. These problems are real and they are happening right now.

To view "An African Tradegy" go to:
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/08/30/slideshow_040830