Viewing the crisis in Darfur from above

Thanks to Google Earth's satellite images and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, you no longer have to travel to Darfur to witness the destruction and chaos of the 4-year genocide. On Tuesday, the Holocaust Museum launched Crisis in Darfur -- a new initiative with Google. Through this project, photographs, data and eyewitness testimony have been mapped onto Google's satellite images of Darfur.

As you zoom in to the Darfur region, the level of destruction becomes clear as vast swaths of area become blanketed by thousands of red and yellow symbols indicating damaged and destroyed villages.


As you continue to zoom in, you can view the individual villages. Below, you can actually see the burn marks left behind. In the left of the below photo, the huts and trees are intact. But in the center, you can see the ashen remains of those homes that were destroyed.

If you don't have Google Earth already, the Holocaust Museum's Google Earth page has links to download the program and the Crisis in Darfur layers. Check it out here.

Also, the New York Times reports that Actress Mia Farrow and Director Steven Spielberg have pressured China, which has extensive business and oil ties to Sudan, to urge Sudan to accept a UN peacekeeping force. A senior Chinese official actually traveled to Sudan and toured Darfur's refugee camps -- a rare event for a government that refuses to interfere in the "internal affairs" of another nation. How did they accomplish this? By linking Darfur to the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing.