Nuba Education Update - December 2023

In 2015, Operation Broken Silence began funding four Sudanese teachers in Yida Refugee Camp. They were giving lessons underneath a tree with a broken chalkboard. They had no textbooks, paper, pencils…nothing.

With your support, their small but brave effort has blossomed into the Endure Primary and Renewal Secondary Schools. 24 Nuba teachers and a headmaster work here every day. They run the show, not us, and serve 1,157 students in their classrooms every week. Endure Primary is the top performing elementary school in the region and a treasured possession of the Nuba community. Renewal Secondary is the only fully-functioning high school in Yida. More than 10,000 children have been served by the school to date.

Operation Broken Silence is the only organization in the world supporting childhood education in Yida Refugee Camp. Beyond these schools, we support Yida’s only other secondary school, a national exam preparation program for all primary students in Yida, and deliver a limited amount of classroom supplies to the eight other schools in the camp.

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Nasrah’s Story

Nasrah was born in the Nuba Mountains. Her family arrived in Yida almost 9 years ago after the Sudanese government attacked their village. She barely remembers her home, saying:

“We did not have clean water or a school near to us at home. When the Antonov (regime plane) came and dropped bombs on us we ran and my mother brought us here to Yida.”

Humanitarian conditions in Yida were rapidly improving when they arrived. Nasrah’s mom was surprised to find clean water easily accessible and multiple schools for Nasrah and her brother.

“My mother still talks about how strange it is that life is usually easier here than it was for us at home. I know she wants to go back to our land, but she does not feel secure now that there is another war.”

Like most families in Yida, they hope to return one day to their homes in the Nuba Mountains. Until then Nasrah is enrolled at the Renewal Secondary School, which is funded entirely by people just like you. Her teachers and friends provide a sense of hope in this time of great upheaval in Sudan. She says:

“Yida is home because my people and family are here. My mother and her friends talk about how much Sudan needs new leaders who care about us. At school my teachers tell us we are the future leaders and that we can end the wars one day. I have learned to read and write from them and have good grades, but having teachers and people on the other side of the world who believe in me is what I will always carry with me from this place. Thank you for joining my people’s struggles. I don’t know what would have happened to us without our teachers and all of you who hear my voice.”

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Recent Updates

Schools In Yida. It’s been a bittersweet year as refugee families once again begin trickling into Yida. Children displaced by the new war in Sudan have been warmly welcomed at the schools, but the reality of the world’s most dangerous armed conflict and worst humanitarian catastrophe weighs heavy on the hearts of everyone.

Thankfully, the teachers you support are uniquely positioned to help. Attendance at Endure Primary has climbed from almost 500 students daily before the war up to 720. Daily attendance has surged nearly 70% to 437 students at Renewal Secondary. Families continue trickling into Yida and are seeking to enroll their children at both schools. The teachers have informed us they still have some breathing room; but, if education needs keep climbing as we expect, both schools will likely be at maximum capacity by Summer 2024.

Photo: Renewal Secondary students celebrate their school achieving first place in national exams. (Operation Broken Silence)

Another round of national exams were conducted in August. Endure Primary and Renewal Secondary remained the top-performing schools in the region just as they have the past several years. And a record 43 out of the 45 students who took the Grade 8 national exam passed and are now enrolling at Renewal Secondary! A perfect score is 400 points and the five top-performing students were Yesmin Khamis Hassan (368.2), Makabula Peter Abdu (354.3), Amin Luke Nadir (353.4), Emmanuel Abdu Abdurahaman (352.5), and Sabri Andraws Junub (350). Congratulations!

Earlier this year, repairs and infrastructure upgrades were completed in most classrooms at both schools. This included more weatherproofing, new roofs and over 4,500 new bricks for replacement walls. Additional materials and backup tarps are also in storage for future repairs. This was made possible with some extra giving from our donors and is already paying dividends. With costs of most supplies skyrocketing from the war, these completed upgrades have kept classrooms in good shape at a time when extra financial support for this type of critical work is difficult to come by.

Photo: Children playing in Yida Refugee Camp at the end of a school day. (Operation Broken Silence)

Broader Education Support In Yida. Endure Primary School continues serving as the central national exam preparation facility for primary students in Yida. The camp’s eight other primary schools receive support and resources annually from our teachers for student test prep. This ancillary program positively impacted 1,458 additional students this year!

Vision Secondary, the only other high school in Yida, remains afloat with help from our teachers. The school was founded several years ago with pledges of support from outside nonprofits and churches, none of which materialized. This is one chapter in a long history of unfulfilled promises to the Nuba people that our education partner is having to mitigate. The teachers at Vision are all untrained, so a handful of the teachers at Renewal Secondary have stepped in to help teach science and provide guidance and crash course training.

Our Nuba education partner continues delivering a limited amount of basic supplies to Yida’s other primary schools, most of which operate with little to no outside support. Chalk, paper, pencils and notebooks remain the most requested items. These deliveries are critical to sustaining Yida’s already fragile education system, but are becoming more difficult to pull off due to rising prices brought on by the war.

We’re working with these incredible teachers to carry the mission forward, but we need your help.

How You Can Help

2023 has been a difficult and remarkable year in Sudan. Difficult in that the regime’s civil war has inflicted unprecedented death and destruction on the Sudanese people. Remarkable in that we’ve seen more bravery, love and grit in our Sudanese partners than ever before.

Funding for the schools remains an uphill battle due to rising costs from the war. The teachers are also receiving fewer donations due to internationally-minded donors moving their focus to the wars in Ukraine and Israel/Palestine, despite the humanitarian crisis in Sudan being the worst in the world. The result is that our Nuba education partner is running on roughly 60% of the funding they need to provide a more holistic education experience for Sudan’s next generation of leaders.

The good news is that you can help them overcome these challenges. Your generosity will help our teachers and students make progress against the odds:

$2,200: Fund an entire classroom at Endure Primary for one semester.

$1,000: Support one teacher for an entire semester.

$750: Deliver three new chalkboards to classrooms.

$500: Give additional materials and extra pay to teachers who are working with students to prepare them for national exams.

$250: Provide for maintenance needs in classrooms.

$100: Give pencils, notebooks and other supplies to 16 students in Yida Refugee Camp.

$50: Give soccer balls and other sporting equipment to students.

Operation Broken Silence is a registered 501(c)(3) organization. Your donations are tax-deductible within the guidelines of U.S. law.

Other Ways To Give

Checks - Personal checks and grants from DAFs can be make payable to Operation Broken Silence and mailed to PO Box 770900 Memphis, TN 38177-0900.

Stocks and Mutual Funds - Use this giving form to donate stock. To give from a mutual fund, download our Investment Fund Transfer Form and follow the instructions. Please note that all stock and mutual fund donations are nonrefundable.

Cryptocurrency - Use this giving form to donate crypto. Please note that all crypto donations are nonrefundable.

Fundraise - Start a fundraising page and ask friends and family to give! These last few days of the year are the perfect time to fundraise.

Give Monthly - The Renewal is our passionate family of monthly givers supporting Sudanese heroes. Sign up here.

Darfur Escape Support & Relief Update - December 2023

Over the last six months, one of our private Sudanese partners has been assisting survivors as they flee the campaign of war crimes and genocide by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) against ethnic African minorities in Darfur. This has been some of the most intense work we’ve seen over the last 12 years of laboring alongside Sudanese heroes. We are incredibly proud of the brave people who have worked around the clock —often at great personal risk— to help some of the most vulnerable escape safely into South Sudan.

We’d like to provide you with an important situation and programming update concerning this emergency work. Let’s start with the current situation in Darfur as a lot has shifted on the ground the past several weeks.

Situation Update

Sudan’s military regime disintegrated on April 15, 2023. The army and paramilitary RSF, the two primary groups in the regime, went to war with each for control of Sudan. Fighting has spread across the country, with millions of Sudanese caught in the crossfire and ethnic minorities facing famine, war crimes, and even genocide.

The long-oppressed western Darfur region has been hit hardest by this senseless conflict. A full-blown genocide of the Masalit ethnic minority in West Darfur by the RSF appears to be underway, with tribal leaders confirming that more than 12,000 of their people having already been exterminated. The death toll in West Darfur is actually far higher as thousands more remain missing and stories of massacres continue trickling out with the stream of traumatized survivors.

Over the past few months, the catastrophe in West Darfur has extended more fully to the rest of Darfur as the RSF and their local Arab allies fight to establish dominance over all of western Sudan. The army was focused on defending their bases in Darfur’s provincial capital cities, allowing the RSF to sweep through smaller towns and rural areas that —at best— only have poorly-armed local militias and oppressive police forces to defend them. Throughout the entirety of this war, the army has shown no interest in protecting civilians, even in areas of Darfur it controlled.

A multi-week, brutal offensive by the RSF against most army positions in Darfur concluded in late October with the state capitals of Nyala and Zalingei being overrun. Since then, tens of thousands of terrified citizens across Darfur have fled as the army withdrew its remaining forces from the region. Only North Darfur and the city of El Fasher remain under the control of the army. A major RSF offensive there seems inevitable.

The RSF’s soldiers have brought chaos and destruction with them into southern Darfur, where our Sudanese partner has been working around the clock to help people flee safely into South Sudan. Like most areas of RSF-controlled Sudan, security has collapsed in southern Darfur over the last several weeks.

Photo: Armed Salamat militia ride toward Habaniya territory. (Social Media)

The RSF, which is more or less a terrorist organization, has proven to be incapable of governing. This reality can be seen easily throughout southern Darfur. The paramilitary force’s targeted killings and threats of violence have led to tens of thousands of new refugees. RSF soldiers have pillaged markets and homes, arms trafficking and other illicit industries are flourishing, and complex local conflicts have again reignited as certain ethnic groups use the fog of war to settle old scores, sometimes with backing from the RSF.

To provide just one example of the latter, in mid-November our Sudanese partner reported that hundreds of armed militiamen belonging to the Salamat and Habaniya tribes were fighting each other near the South Sudan border. Local tribal disputes, including many peaceful ones, are common in Darfur; but, what caught their attention is that this specific armed conflict was between two Arab tribes. Tensions have run high for years between the Salamat and Habaniya —mostly over land— but this round of fighting began after army forces withdrew from the area a week earlier and the RSF took over.

A video taken by a Salamat fighter and posted to social media confirms the fighting, showing members of his tribe riding on horseback toward Habaniya villages as he says “The Habaniya will be annihilated. Go, go, readiness!” Go, go, readiness is a battle cry sometimes used by the RSF, suggesting the Salamat militia has ties to the paramilitary force.

The ethnic dimensions of the RSF’s war to control Darfur are harrowing enough —as is readily apparent in the West Darfur massacres— but the group’s willingness to take sides in Arab-Arab local conflicts is a grim reminder that no one is safe as long as the RSF exists. Where the RSF goes, death and destruction follows.

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Tariq’s Story *

Tariq is from Zalingei in Darfur. The city’s displacement camps were home to people who belong to African ethnic groups targeted by the RSF. “Zalingei was my home even though it was not always easy. I was arrested once before and beaten by police,” he describes.

Tariq and two of his friends fled Zalingei when the war made staying impossible. “The janjaweed stole all of our belongings but we managed to escape,” he says. Janjaweed is a term used to describe the RSF and their Arab militia allies. They left the city on foot.

Their harrowing journey through the war toward the South Sudan border took 16 days. Tariq and his friends say the army did nothing to protect anyone.

Our Sudanese partner provided them ground transport in southern Darfur and helped them cross safely into South Sudan, giving them food when they arrived. Tariq and his friends are now safe in Juba. They do not plan on returning anytime soon since the RSF now control Zalingei.

“I hope to go home one day, but we cannot go back with the janjaweed breathing threats against us,” he says. “My friends are grateful to those who helped us get out. We would be dead without them. Please tell people everywhere to give so we can help more people. We can still save many lives but it takes money to do it.”

*Tariq’s name has been changed to protect his identity.

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Photo: RSF bootprints outside of a village in southern Darfur. In the final weeks of their work, team members frequently had to navigate areas that the RSF had a growing presence in. (Operation Broken Silence)

Program Update

During the past six months, our Sudanese partner’s seven person team has helped roughly 1,900 refugees fleeing RSF violence navigate parts of Central, South, and East Darfur, cross safely into South Sudan, and provided a limited amount of food and other basic necessities to those most in need.

This work has taken on a variety of creative forms, ranging from moving people on a large truck to guiding those fleeing on foot to safer routes that led to the South Sudan border. Most highways and major roads in Darfur are now overrun by the RSF and their Arab militia allies, making any travel harrowing for those belonging to targeted ethnic groups.

Many people who made contact with our rudimentary escape network said this was the only source of hope and help they had found since the war began in April. Some reported seeing RSF soldiers and their local Arab allies executing unarmed black civilians, including male babies and male children. These accounts match recent, horrifying public reporting on Arab fighters “hunting” for boys belonging to African tribal groups elsewhere in Darfur.

In November, our Sudanese partner informed us that spiraling security conditions had made continuing this program untenable. Despite often being in or near areas with a growing RSF presence, not a single member of the team was harmed or killed during this lifesaving work. The last team member crossed into South Sudan at the beginning of December, effectively bringing this escape assistance work to an end. We are now shifting to more basic humanitarian activities (food, clothing, shelter, etc.) for over 400 Darfuri refugees who have traveled all the way to Juba, South Sudan.

At their request, we aren’t releasing the names of team members or any information that can identify them. They hope to continue working in Darfur one day and their anonymity will be required to do so.

This brave and successful operation was made possible in part by the wonderful generosity of our donors, who paid for fuel, food, and other materials that were used to help people reach safety in South Sudan. Without your generous support, it is likely that some of the 1,900 people you helped would not have made it. We can’t thank you enough for your support. People are alive today because of you.

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How You Can Help

2023 has been a difficult and remarkable year in Sudan. Difficult in that the regime’s civil war has inflicted unprecedented death and destruction on the Sudanese people. Remarkable in that we’ve seen more bravery, love, and grit in our Sudanese partners than ever before.

Funding for all of our programs remains an uphill battle due to rising costs from the war. Our Sudanese partners are also receiving fewer donations as internationally-minded donors focus on the wars in Ukraine and Israel/Palestine, despite the humanitarian crisis in Sudan being the worst in the world. The result is that there are currently no funds available to help the more than 400 Darfuri refugees in Juba.

The good news is that you can help. Your generosity will bring food, medicine, clothing, and more to these people in their time of greatest need:

$1,000: Gives culturally-respective, quality clothing to women in need.

$750: Delivers most basic foodstuffs needed for communal meals during cultural celebrations.

$500: Provides a daily nutritious meal to 35 children for an entire month.

$250: Gives basic medicines to the refugee community for two months.

$100: Feeds two families for one month.

$50: Feeds a family for one month.

Operation Broken Silence is a registered 501(c)(3) organization. Your donations are tax-deductible within the guidelines of U.S. law.

Other Ways To Give

Checks - Personal checks and grants from DAFs can be make payable to Operation Broken Silence and mailed to PO Box 770900 Memphis, TN 38177-0900.

Stocks and Mutual Funds - Use this giving form to donate stock. To give from a mutual fund, download our Investment Fund Transfer Form and follow the instructions. Please note that all stock and mutual fund donations are nonrefundable.

Cryptocurrency - Use this giving form to donate crypto. Please note that all crypto donations are nonrefundable.

Fundraise - Start a fundraising page and ask friends and family to give! These last few days of the year are the perfect time to fundraise.

Give Monthly - The Renewal is our passionate family of monthly givers supporting Sudanese heroes. Sign up here.

Make your last gift of 2023

Friends and supporters,

It has been both a difficult and remarkable year in Sudan. Difficult in that the regime’s civil war has inflicted unprecedented death and destruction on the Sudanese people. Remarkable in that we’ve seen more bravery, love, and grit in our Sudanese partners than ever before.

Giving deadlines are below, but we encourage you to make your final gift of 2023 now. We need to send another round of emergency funding to our Sudanese partners in early January. Your gift can help make that happen and is tax-deductible within the guidelines of U.S. law.

$1,000 - Fully funds one classroom at Endure Primary School in Yida Refugee Camp for half a semester.

$500 - Delivers food to Darfuri genocide survivors who have fled to South Sudan.

$250 - Provides a daily breakfast to 10 children for an entire month in Adré refugee camp, where many Darfuri genocide survivors now live.

$100 - Supports the monthly work of a sexual assault counselor in Zamzam displacement camp in North Darfur, Sudan.

$50 - Helps repair classrooms in Yida damaged by seasonal rains and provide for general maintenance.

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Giving Season Deadlines

For gifts to count toward the 2023 tax year:

Online Donations - Sunday, Dec 31

Checks - Dated & postmarked by Friday, Dec 29. Make payable to Operation Broken Silence and mail to PO Box 770900 Memphis, TN 38177-0900.

Donor-Advised Funds - Ask your DAF manager for grant submission cutoff times. It usually takes several days for DAFs to process grants. We recommend submitting your donation now.

Stocks & Mutual Funds - Must be processed by close of markets on Friday, Dec 29. To give from a mutual fund, download our Investment Fund Transfer Form and follow the instructions. Please note that all stock and mutual fund donations are nonrefundable.

Cryptocurrency - Must be processed by midnight on Sunday, Dec 31. Blockchain processing times vary, so we encourage you to donate by December 30 to ensure adequate time for your gift to process. Please note that all crypto donations are nonrefundable.

Have a question before giving? Shoot us a message here and we’ll be in touch soon. With your generous support, we can help our Sudanese partners continue saving and change lives for the better.

Giving Tuesday 2023

Friends and supporters,

Your generosity on this year’s Giving Tuesday was simply incredible. Donations are still trickling in, but as of today you raised and gave $15,261 across all of our primary and private campaigns. Well done!

Next week, the support you’ve provided will be sent to the education, healthcare, and emergency response programs we assist in Sudan. The ongoing war has made the work of the Sudanese heroes we partner with even more important than it already was. You are proving that when we pool our resources together, we can help them do amazing things for the people they serve. Thank you for an incredible day of generosity!

To learn more about the Sudanese heroes we support and see the latest news from them, we encourage you to visit our programs page.

The Giving Season

There is still much work to be done in these final days of 2023. Join us by giving once or through The Renewal, our family of monthly givers:

• $200: Supports a teacher for one month.

• $150: Pays a nurse assistant’s salary for an entire month.

• $100: Provides pencils, notebooks, and other basic school supplies for 16 students.

• $50: Gives nets, balls, and more play.

Checks can be made payable to Operation Broken Silence and mailed to PO Box 770900 Memphis, TN 38177-0900. You can also donate stock or crypto.

Your donation is tax-deductible within the guidelines of U.S. law. Please keep your email donation receipt as your official record.

Women and Conflict in Sudan

This is a brief article providing a contextual background for understanding the issues Operation Broken Silence works on. It is part of our resource list for students, teachers, and the curious and was last updated November 2023. For more information about what's happening in Sudan and our work, please sign up for our email list.

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While violence touches everyone in conflict, women and girls face particular gendered violence on top of genocidal violence from their national, ethnic, racial, or religious identity. Historically men are more likely to be victims of direct killing acts while women face non-killing acts that can be overlooked, obscured, and erased from the historical record.

While some advances have been made for women —with the International Criminal Court recognizing women’s experiences as convictable war crimes— there is still more work to be done by both further advocating for women’s voices during war tribunals and removing stigma of gender violence, so women feel comfortable sharing about their experiences.

Because of this stigma, oftentimes few stories exist, which is the case for women in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan. Over the past few decades, specific instances of gender violence include forced marriages, forced relocation to Khartoum, and the mass rape of women. All of these examples break down the fundamental bond of the family and community in the Nuba Mountains.

Below is a list of further resources on the violence that women face in conflict and genocide as well as how we might enact change to stop it.

Women’s Experiences of Genocide

Resource from The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

SEE MORE

SUDAN - UN WOMEN

Article from the United Nations

READ MORE

RAPE IS A WEAPON OF WAR

Report from Amnesty International on sexual violence in Darfur

READ MORE

Celebrating Women’s History in Sudan

Article from Radio Dabanga

READ MORE

Ending Violence Against Women

Resource from the United Nations

SEE MORE

GENOCIDE BY ATTRITION

Book with female experiences specific to the Nuba Mountains

GET BOOK

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From Learning To Action

Operation Broken Silence is building a global movement to empower Sudanese heroes in the war-torn periphery regions of Sudan, including teachers in Yida Refugee Camp. Teachers just like Chana.

The Endure Primary and Renewal Secondary Schools we sponsor are run entirely by Sudanese teachers. These are two of the only Nuba schools that require half of all students be girls. Your gift will help pay educator salaries, deliver school supplies and more.

If you can’t donate right now, we encourage you start a fundraising page and ask friends and family to give!

We are a 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization. Your donation is tax-deductible within the guidelines of U.S. law.

The Dangers of Genocide Denial

Photo: A home in Sudan’s Nuba Mountains smolders after being bombed by a regime warplane. The Sudanese government has denied committing two genocides in the region. (Operation Broken Silence)

This is a brief article providing a contextual background for understanding the issues Operation Broken Silence works on. It is part of our resource list for students, teachers, and the curious and was last updated November 2023. For more information about what's happening in Sudan and our work, please sign up for our email list.

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Genocide denial is the attempt to minimize or redefine the scale and severity of a genocide, and sometimes even deny a genocide is or was being committed. It is the final stage of The 10 Stages of Genocide, a processual model that aims to demonstrate how genocides are committed.

The goal of genocide denial is twofold: cast doubt on charges of genocide to protect perpetrators and silence survivors. Genocide denial is an extended process that requires significant resources. It often begins before crimes are being committed and continues decades after the killing ends.

Examples of Genocide Denial

Campaigns of genocide denial are multi-faceted and cover a variety of actions. These are some of the common aspects that can be found in most genocide denials:

Redefining The Killing - Perpetrators and their enablers will often try to replace charges and accusations of genocide with a variety of terms, such as claiming that the killings are a “counter-insurgency” or civilians “caught in the crossfire” of a civil war. Sometimes perpetrators will even express false public remorse that civilians have been killed, but also claim that they were killed inadvertently.

Arguing Down The Numbers Of Those Killed - Human rights monitors, journalists, and other investigative entities usually don’t have full access to genocide-afflicted areas, so estimates of the number of people killed are often provided to the public. Perpetrators will often try to minimize the number of people who have been killed in the targeted group, knowing that date which is 100% accurate is not available to the world. For example, throughout the Darfur genocide, the Sudanese government regularly claimed that only 10,000 people had died, while evidence-based, conservative estimates stated over 250,000 people had been killed.

Victim Blaming - Perpetrators will often blame the victims, making false accusations that the aggressor was attacked first and they responded in “self-defense.” The most egregious perpetrators will claim that the victims “deserved it,” dehumanizing them even further to drive more killing and the silencing of survivors.

Denying Ongoing Killing - Genocide denial often starts before extermination begins, with the perpetrators brushing off concerns and warnings that a genocide they are preparing is imminent. Campaigns of denial are often become more elaborate when the killing begins. In rare moments of intense international focus, perpetrators will often deny committing or having specific knowledge of individual massacres they are accused of participating in.

Blocking Human Rights Investigations - Perpetrators will often block human rights monitors, journalists, and other investigative persons from entering afflicted areas. They will claim that outsiders are not allowed in because security is poor or blame the victim group, which may have self-armed to defend themselves. This prevents experts, humanitarian relief, and security assistance from reaching the most at-risk people and keeps the world in the dark on the specifics of a genocide.

Destruction of Evidence - Fearing criminal prosecution or an armed intervention by outside military forces, perpetrators will often dig up mass graves, burn the bodies, and try to cover up evidence and intimidate any witnesses. Documents and photographic evidence are sought out and destroyed. Lower-level perpetrators who carried out the killing face-to-face may be targeted by their commanders as part of the cover-up.

The Dangers of Genocide Denial

Genocide is a widespread enterprise, often involving tens of thousands of perpetrators up and down chains of command. Campaigns of genocide denial are rarely, if ever, successful in the long run. There are simply too many individual perpetrators involved to cover up every detail and shred of evidence, as well as survivors who have documented their own experiences.

Regardless, genocide denial still poses grave risks to victim groups and survivors, nation-states in which genocide has been committed, and international security.

Victim Groups and Survivors - Genocide denial is often painful to victim groups and survivors, even to generations who live after the crimes were committed. It is not just a denial of truth and reality, but also denies them the ability to heal, rebuild, and ease generational trauma. Research also suggests that one of the single best predictors of a future genocide is denial of a past genocide coupled with impunity for its perpetrators.

As long as the perpetrator group is in power, genocide denial provides an avenue to continue the genocide and prevent survivors and victims from finding paths forward. Yet even if perpetrators are removed from power, there are often still individuals and groups who rise up to deny a genocide. For example, Holocaust denialism still exists today despite the fall of Nazi Germany and the genocide being well-documented by the Nazis themselves.

Nation-States - Countries in which genocide has been committed and is being denied often face an array of challenges and threats in the aftermath. Large refugee and internally-displaced persons camps, devastated communities, poverty, insecurity, and more are left in the wake of a genocide. Societies are fractured and people groups –including bystanders– have lost trust in their neighbors.

Even if the perpetrator group has fallen from power, new governments often struggle to provide security, reparations, and truth and reconciliation processes to the citizenry. In some cases, genocide denial can lead to survivors taking matters into their own hands and committing revenge killings, which can lead to more genocidal massacres of the victim group.

International Security - The crime of genocide provides cover for other international crimes, such as weapons, human, and drug trafficking, wildlife poaching, and valuable natural resources being seized to fund more killing. Perpetrator militias and combatants may cross international borders to attack fleeing victims or help nearby allies, spreading chaos and insecurity as they go.

For example, Sudanese regime militias have fought in others wars in Libya, Central African Republic, and Yemen. They also control lucrative gold mines, cross international borders to poach endangered wildlife, and have participated in human and weapons trafficking networks. Their destabilizing impact has been felt throughout central, northern, and eastern Africa, not just in Sudan.

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From Learning To Action

Operation Broken Silence is building a global movement to empower Sudanese heroes and genocide survivors in Sudan, including teachers in Yida Refugee Camp. Teachers just like Chana.

Operation Broken Silence is building a global movement to empower the Sudanese people through innovative programs as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Our work empowers Sudanese change makers and their critical efforts to save and change lives for the better.

There are three ways you can help. You can start a campaign and ask friends and family to give, setup a small monthly recurring donation, or make a generous one-time gift.

We are a 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization. Your donation is tax-deductible within the guidelines of U.S. law.