Category : Blogroll
Category : Blogroll
Category : Blogroll
Category : Blogroll
Category : Blogroll
Category : Blogroll
[Nairobi, Kenya 29°] A return to Nairobi after a heavy schedule across seven cities and countless villages throughout Southern Sudan leaves me tired and ready for a holiday in Tanzania. First a safari near Arusha, then a beachside break on the island of Zanzibar.
I haven’t had the opportunity to post in the last two weeks as I continued to visit sites, interview people and learn more about the complexities of Southern Sudan.
Once I return to Montréal in early May, I will begin to review my pages of notes and hundreds of photos taken during the sevens weeks in Southern Sudan. I will view the hours of video footage and listen to the dozens of audio interviews recorded during the visit. The books, newspapers, reports and other written documentation collected during the visit will be read and analysed upon return.
Here are a selection of photographs taken during the visit that portray…
Category : Uncategorized
[Abyei, South Kordofan, Southern Sudan 40°C] Abousfian Abdelrazik is a man from Montréal whose been living in ‘temporary safe haven’ in the Canadian Embassy in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, since late April 2008. He has been in Sudan since March 2003, when he went to visit his mother. According to a timeline of his case, Abdelrazik was arrested six months later and detained for ten months before being released.
(source: Peoples Commission on Immigration Security Measures)
Documents obtained under the Privacy Act (.pdf 169Mb or ZIP 52Mb) and available from the website of the People’s Commission on Immigration Security Measures indicate that Mr. Abdelrazik, a Canadian citizen, was incarcerated in Sudan on the request of Canadian officials. While in prison in December 2003, he was interrogated by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). Since his release in July 2006, he has been blocked from returning home to Montréal.
Mr. Abdelrazik’s family lives in Montréal and has…
Category : Uncategorized
[Warrap Town, Southern Sudan 45°C] Below is a podcast that was aired on Wednesday, March 25 on Amandla, a weekly Africa news and issues radio show on Montréal’s CKUT 90.3 FM.
Here is the transcript of the audio report with a few added photos:
Exactly three weeks ago, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for the President of Sudan, Omar Hassan Al-Bashir, for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Darfur. Like many people in Sudan, I was glued to the television set to view the announcement. It was 4 p.m.
An anonymous blogger who worked for an international aid agency in Darfur wrote on AlertNet, that one hour after the announcement was made, his agency received a phone call. “The Government had revoked our licence and we must close all our programmes. No further explanation. First thing the next day we were told all international staff had to leave Darfur…
Category : Uncategorized
[Warrap Town, Southern Sudan 43°C] Eight of us climb into the Land Cruiser and leave the World Vision compound at around 11h00. We drive to the brick storage room, where refrigerators store vaccinations for the immunization program (funded by CIDA) that takes place in different villages every Monday, Wednesday and Friday in Tonj North County. We load tables and chairs onto the roof of the vehicle; carefully place coolers of vaccines against meningitis, tetanus, measles into the back, and toss boxes of syringes, gauze and rubber gloves under the vehicles back benches. Five children congregate by the passenger door to get a closer look at the khawaja: me the white man in the front seat. Half of them are naked. All of them reluctant to shake this khawaja’s hand, despite customary protocol.
We drive for one and a half hours, averaging 25 km/hour, along dirt roads that will become impassable during the…
Category : Uncategorized
This all started with the desire to better understand what happens to a place once 21 years of civil war slips into the past with the signing of a peace agreement.
widgeDavid Widgington was the event coordinator for the Citizen Media Rendez-vous 2010 (http://citizen-media.ca). He is a mobile journalist (MoJo) who is well-versed in community radio, video and print and web-based media practices. He has a particular interest these days with diaspora communities returning to Southern Sudan since the end of the war. He is script-writing a documentary project on the subject. (http://southsudaninfo.net).