We sat at a table overlooking a backyard adorned with the colors of May, sipping lemonade. The tranquil scene belied the purpose of my visit to Eric Reeves’ home. I came to interview the Smith College Professor Emeritus of English Language and Literature, who is also an internationally recognized expert on Sudan. The recent horrific news about Sudan was confusing, but rather than shrugging my shoulders and tuning out a situation I didn’t understand, I emailed Eric, asking if we could meet. In recent weeks, he has been deluged by interview requests, yet for more than two hours he patiently explained the humanitarian disaster gripping Sudan.

I first met Eric in the early 2000s, as a member of the Darfur Action Group. At the time, genocidal violence in Darfur, a region in western Sudan, had caught the attention of activists, including celebrities like George Clooney and Mia Farrow. Our group, organized through my synagogue, worked locally to rally people to demand that the U.S. government take action to end the genocide in Darfur. The violence never stopped. But most activists, feeling powerless, abandoned the cause. The rallying cry to “Save Darfur,” went silent.

Eric Reeves, however, never stopped. For 24 years he has advocated for the people of Sudan, especially its women and children. Eric’s 40-page “Sudan resume” lists dozens of affiliations, publications, testimony, and academic presentations, including the creation of an “unrivaled” archive documenting the violence that has claimed two million lives in the North/South civil wars resulting in the establishment of South Sudan, and close to 600,000 lives in Darfur. His prophetic words warned of genocide in Darfur in a Washington Post op ed. Eric’s commitment to what many see as the “poor, Black, Muslim, and geopolitically inconsequential people of Sudan,” has been steadfast.

Sudan is again in the news. In 2013, Sudan’s dictator, Omar al-Bashir, who was deposed in a popular uprising in 2019 and is charged with genocide by the International Criminal Court, created the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a heavily-armed militia tasked with “finishing the job that the Janjaweed started” in Darfur. With a “license to kill” the RSF conducted a six-year rampage of Darfur.

In 2019 the militia headed towards Sudan’s capital, Khartoum. In October 2021, the prime minister, who replaced al-Bashir, was removed. Gen. AbdelFattah al-Burhan, leader of The Sudanese Armed Forces and Gen. Mohamed HamdanDagalo, known as Hermedti, who leads The Rapid Support Forces, coordinated a coup in October 2021. The fragile alliance between the two leaders dissolved in April 2023, leading to a brutal war with “two military leaders fighting it out with their supporters for control of Sudan.” Murder and rape, as well as lack of food, water, electricity, and medical care have created an unprecedented humanitarian disaster, resulting in extreme malnutrition in a country where one third of Sudan’s 45 million people had already been in need of humanitarian assistance.

Khartoum is in a state of chaos and people are running for their lives. Refugees are pouring into neighboring Chad, which had already absorbed over 400,000 refugees. In the face of a grave humanitarian disaster, the anemic U.S. response has been to broker a series of unsurprisingly broken truces, while failing to call out the brutality of Hemedti and Dagalo.

Perhaps you’re ready to stop reading. After all, how can we possibly contain violence on the other side of the world, when we can’t contain the violence in our own country? Guided by his moral compass, Eric Reeves is focused on the “brutal and vicious” use of rape/gang rape as a weapon of war against thousands of women and girls in Sudan, developing a program in Darfur’s Zamzam refugee camp, providing psychological and medical help to victims of sexual violence. These women and girls are scarred by the trauma of sadistic sexual violence. Some are shamed and ostracized from their communities. It’s not surprising that suicide is the only way that some vulnerable victims can escape their pain.

Twenty skilled counselors have enabled 4,000 rape victims to break their silence and find support. Doctors perform surgical repair of vaginal fistulas, an opening between the vagina and another organ such as the bladder, rectum, or colon, often resulting from rape. Victims of vaginal fistulas experience shame and discomfort associated with leakage, foul odors, and other symptoms. “Team Zamzam” also provides those most in need among the camp’s 400,000 residents with food and medical aid. While Eric Reeves crusades for the U.N. and governments to take seriously the issue of rape as a weapon of war, Project Zamzam reminds its participants that the world has not forgotten them.

This is where you come in. Eric Reeves is a skilled wood-turner. He donates 100% of the proceeds from selling his beautiful bowls and decorative items to help fund Project Zamzam. The best way to help is to buy a gift to save a life, by purchasing a woodturning from his website gallery: www.ericreeves-woodturner.com/gallery. Those wishing a tax deduction can contribute via Project Zamzam’s fiscal sponsor: fundraise.operationbrokensilence.org/give/434150/#!/donation/checkout.

Sara Weinberger of Easthampton is a professor emerita of social work and writes a monthly column. She can be reached at columnists@gazettenet.com.]]>