#darfur-conflict

#darfur-conflict

Atrocities continue as Sudan's military retreats from el-Fasher, a town in Darfur that has been under a grueling siege for more than 500 days. Also, Hurricane Melissa makes landfall in Jamaica with catastrophic winds and the potential for widespread flooding and landslides. And, President Vladimir Putin says Russia has a nuclear-powered cruise missile that can't be intercepted by US technology, and that it's been tested successfully and is ready to be deployed. Plus, an ant that can give birth to an entirely different species.

In 2006, as genocidal violence in Sudan's Darfur region spilled into neighbouring Chad, I spent several weeks with an Amnesty International research team travelling along the Chadian side of that troubled border, documenting the impact of a string of brutal attacks against isolated villages that had left a macabre trail of death, destruction, and fear. This part of eastern Chad is arid and barren, with rocky, hard-packed earth, shifting sands, gnarled trees, and scrappy bush.