Darfurians make new life in US Indiana
Feb 11, 2007 (ELKHART, Ind.) – Hundreds of refugees from Sudan’s troubled Darfur region have migrated to northern Indiana to make a new start, in some cases headintg for the rural region after finding life hard in big cities.
Churches and other groups have sponsored trips to Sudan and organized efforts to bring refugees here. The nonprofit Web site SaveDarfur.org lists almost two dozen awareness groups within 150 miles of Elkhart.
“That’s really commendable and not widely known that there are these groups that have taken up this issue in very active ways,” said A. Rashied Omar, a research scholar of Islamic studies and peacebuilding at the University of Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies in nearby South Bend.
The Fort Wayne area is home to one of the largest pocket of Darfur natives in the United States, said Suliman Giddo, who founded the nonprofit Darfur Peace and Development in the northeast Indiana city. Between 250 and 300 Darfurians live in the area.
Giddo, who moved to Fort Wayne to continue his education, said Indiana was not the original destination of many of his fellow Darfurians, but they found it hard to adapt to life in major U.S. cities.
Adam Tairab left the Darfur region of Sudan nearly five years ago. The 44-year-old Tairab came to Elkhart to work at his cousin’s convenience store, and now hopes to bring his wife and two sons to the United States. They are petitioning the U.S. government to let them come join Tairab in Elkhart.
“Nobody’s asking for this,” Tairab said of the turmoil in his native country. “We need many eyes looking at what happens in Darfur. If someone is killing in the Midwest, everybody would know it. But it’s in Africa. Nobody sees. Nobody listens.”
More than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million been chased from their homes in Sudan’s remote western region since 2003, when rebels stemming from ethnic African tribes rose up against the Arab-led central government.
Violence has only worsened since the government and one rebel group signed a peace agreement in May. The government is accused of masterminding a brutal counterinsurgency using Arab militias known as the janjaweed. The government denies the charges.
“In history we’ve seen that once its off the newspapers, the suffering will continue in different ways,” Omar said.
(AP)