PHR traveled to Chad in 2004 to document the effects of the Darfur Genocide for refugees and civilians, collecting eyewitness testimony from dozens of Darfurian refugees in neighboring Chad. PHR researchers found that through their elimination of access to food, water, and medicine, expulsion of people into inhospitable terrain and then, in many cases, blocking crucial outside assistance, the government and the Janjaweed created conditions calculated to destroy the non-Arab people of Darfur.
We called the actions genocide.
Our findings were published in the report “Darfur: Assault on Survival.” The use of rape by the Janjaweed militias in concert with the government of Sudan is well documented in the report “The Use of Rape as a Weapon of War in the Conflict in Darfur, Sudan,” which was prepared for the U.S. Agency for International Development. In 2009, in partnership with the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, PHR produced “Nowhere to Turn: Failure to Protect, Support and Assure Justice for Darfuri Women,” documenting the scope and long-term impact of rape and other sexual violence experienced by these women.
