Overview: Project Responding to Sexual Violence in Darfur (May 2024)
Eric Reeves is founder and co-chair of a humanitarian organization working in Zamzam internally displaced persons (IDP) camp, southwest of El Fasher, the state capital of North Darfur. His co-chair is Gaffar Mohammud Saeneen, a native of Darfur although now part of the growing Darfuri diaspora. The focus of the project since its beginning four years ago (summer 2020) has been to respond to the devastating consequences of girls and women traumatized by sexual violence. There has been considerable success (see testimonials and narratives here), but sexual violence remains rampant and the El Fasher area is now engulfed in genocidal violence orchestrated by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the successor militia to the infamous Janjaweed that was responsible for the massive ethnically-targeted destruction prior to the creation of the RSF in 2013.
Since 2013 the RSF has engaged in brutal tactics designed to continue the campaign against the majority non-Arab/African population of Darfur, with what have become devastating consequences, especially since the outbreak of civil war in Sudan in April 2023, pitting the RSF against the regular Sudan Armed Forces. The provision of food, water, and medicine have become as much our concern as the response to the trauma of sexual violence.
In addition to providing psychosocial counseling to many thousands of girls and women—and surgical treatment for almost 100 victims of traumatic fistulas—we have provided food and medicine to thousands of the most desperately needy families in the camp. Water is also extremely limited in Zamzam, and so we have funded the complete rehabilitation of ten key water wells in the camp, providing enough water for more than 15,000 people.
But we remain true to our original mission, and the twenty counselors from the camp who make up “Team Zamzam”—and are fully responsible for all decisions of consequence on the ground—devote tremendous time and effort to saving victims of sexual violence from lives of ongoing trauma, shame, social ostracization, and all too frequently great physical pain, as brutal gang-rape is extremely common. The Team’s acquisition of food and medicine is made with the greatest possible efficiency in El Fasher, although as of this writing, the RSF is laying siege to the city and prices for all goods have seen astronomical inflation in prices. Assistance is needed more now than ever.
There is absolutely no overhead for the project, which is funded entirely through contributions and from the sale of Eric’s woodturning. Tax-deductible contributions may be made through a dedicated portal on the website of another humanitarian organization working in Sudan (with 501/c/43 status).
Monthly updates on our project may be found here.
