Last October I was idly browsing the BBC news online when a bizarre headline caught my eye: “French held over Chad ‘adoptions’”. Clicking on the link I soon found myself reading a very sordid tale indeed.

Nine French citizens were arrested in Chad for attempting to kidnap 103 children from the country. They were part of an organization called Arch de Zoe (Zoe’s Ark)—a group of French 4×4 enthusiasts (yes apparently they do exist) who banned together following the Asian tsunami of December 2004.

In April 2007 the group announced it would try to evacuate 10,000 orphans from Darfur to France.

The BBC found out that approximately 300 European families hoped to adopt one of these children—perhaps paying up to $1.4million dollars to charities.

Zoe’s Ark responded by stating that they were not an adoption agency. They “just wanted to rescue [the orphans] from death”—the children were supposedly from Darfur.

It turned out, however, that nearly all of the children were from Chad with at least one living relative.

Oops. Read More »

Perpetual war.

Think of the pictures you’ve seen of bombed-out Iraq, horror stories of refugee camps, and hauntingly hollow eyes of children who have seen too much…

War. Death. Destruction. Pain. Sorrow. No Hope. No Life. No Point.

Somalia needs your attention.

One of the most dangerous places in the world, Somalia has been locked in constant conflict since the overthrow of General Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.

U.N. Special Representative Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah stated on March 24 that,

“The situation in Somalia, indeed, is serious. Serious because it has been at war for so long that many people probably do not understand what it means to live in peace, and this is not an exaggeration, or living with a government.”

According to GlobalSecurity.org, 350,000-1,000,000 Somalis have died since 1990 in the conflict.

According to Human Rights Watch, as of 1990, the male literacy rate was 36% and the female literacy rate was 14%.

A fifth of Somalian children die before their fifth birthday. Read More »