UK / FILE: Artwork by Darfuri children to be submitted as evidence of war crimes

A set of drawings made by Sudanese children who fled from the troubled region of Darfur to neighbouring Chad are being submitted to the International Criminal Court (ICC). The court has begun proceedings against a Sudanese government minister and a militia commander accused of committing war crimes in Darfur. In a unique move, the images collected by peace campaigner Anna Schmidt, will be submitted as evidence to the hearing. Schmidt, a researcher for Waging Peace, which campaigns against genocide, came across the material by chance. While interviewing the women of Darfur about alleged atrocities she handed their children paper, pencils and crayons to keep them occupied. Most of the children were illiterate, but many began drawing Sudanese tanks, planes and helicopters launching co-ordinated attacks with the Arab Janjaweed militia against local people defending themselves with bows and arrows. The graphic images include bombings, be-headings, women chained together, homes being torched and mass graves. The government of Sudan has repeatedly denied launching military attacks in Darfur, but Waging Peace believe the drawings are evidence of widescale slaughter. Louise Roland-Gosselin, the Director of Waging Peace, who will submit the drawings to the ICC, said: "The drawings depict attacks on the villages by the Sudanese government forces and Janjaweed militias. Importantly they are, there are tanks, Antinovs and helicopters burning the villages killing civilians. What's very clear is that this is civilians being killed, women, children, young adults. You can also see children being thrown into fires, people being taken away as slaves, I mean it's very, very gruesome, violent drawings." The ICC wants Ahmed Muhammed Harun, formerly Sudan's junior interior minister responsible for Darfur and now humanitarian affairs minister, and Ali Mohammed Ali Abd-al-Rahman, a leader of one of the Janjaweed militias, to stand trial for alleged war crimes in Darfur. It is far from certain that Sudan will hand them over. Roland-Gosselin added: "What we hope is that the International Criminal Court will take the evidence into consideration and will look at the nature of the attacks, not only the actions that are taking place but also the ethnic character of these. Often in the drawings you can see that the attackers have light skin whereas the victims have darker skin really showing the ethnic character of the attacks, which is very important in defining the attacks as genocide." Waging Peace estimate that 110 people are dying in Darfur every day and say more than 200,000 people have been killed since the crisis began four years ago. A further two million have been displaced, 250,000 of them fleeing across the border to Chad. Last Tuesday (July 31) the United Nations backed a British and French resolution which will allow a 26,000-strong UN-Africa Union peacekeeping force to go to Darfur.

ITN Source | August 6, 2007

Tags:. .committing. .graphic. .further. .commander. .submitted