Famine as a Weapon in Sudan

"We left our homes with not even a cup like this one," recounted the woman from a Sudanese refugee camp in Ethiopia last month, gesturing toward a red plastic cup lying in the dirt next to her foot. Asma, a name we are using for her to help ensure her safety, said Sudanese government Antonov planes bombed her village and government soldiers, supported by ethnic militia, chased and killed civilians. They did not spare children and pregnant women, she said angrily. "It's all because we are black," Asma told our colleagues in the Satellite Sentinel Project. She said that the militias were shouting, "Grab the slaves!" Her subsequent week-long journey with 50 other women to the refugee camp was harrowing. "Many of the women had to leave their babies in their cribs."