Angelina Jolie has written a new article for Time magazine, calling for more action to end the crisis in Darfur.On Friday, members of the United Nations Security Council will learn the results of the International Criminal Court's Darfur investigation.
"The evidence the prosecutor has presented is clear and compelling," Jolie writes, pointing out that "millions of people have been displaced" and "hundreds of thousands have been killed."Jolie recalls her first trip to Chad to visit refugees from Darfur in 2004.
Since then, she sadly notes, "nothing changed."Despite the Bush administration labeling the Darfur situation as "genocide," Jolie says the words have not "compelled us to intervene."Says the actress (who turned 36 Thursday): "Darfur has almost disappeared from the news, and experts now call it a 'low intensity" conflict.' But the intensity of the crisis has not lessened for those who are struggling to survive."
"More than 250,000 people from Darfur have lived destitute lives in refugee camps in Chad for six years now," says the mother of six. "Camps with more than two million internally displaced persons inside Darfur are even worse. Thirty percent of those displaced are school-age children. Girls leaving the camps are raped; boys leaving the camps are killed. They want an education; they want to go back to their villages, to their land; they want peace. But they also want justice."