Sudanese women cross from Darfur into Chad on donkeys hoping to find shelter at a refugee camp. Photograph: Les Neuhas/EPA
The US Holocaust museum in Washington and Google Earth have teamed up for a project that weaves together satellite technology, photos and eyewitness testimony that amounts to a powerful indictment of the Sudanese government for Darfur.
Called Crisis in Darfur, the online mapping initiative provides Google Earth users with a chance to literally zoom in on the Darfur region, where the UN estimates some 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million people have fled their homes.
The high resolution imagery in Google Earth enables users to view more than 1,600 damaged and destroyed villages. The Google map of Darfur is itself dramatic, the whole area marked by icons of red or yellow flames that graphically conveys the mayhem that has been inflicted on the people of the region.
The idea came from Andria Ruben McCool, a former Google employee whose family includes Holocaust survivors from Germany.
"People don't know where Darfur is, so that's the first thing ... taking this event that's in the news and making it real to people," Ms McCool told the Los Angeles Times.
She started the project two years ago as part of Google's scheme that allows employees to spend a fifth of their time on individual projects. She thought the downloadable mapping software would be ideal to raise awareness about Darfur and approached the Holocaust museum, which saw the potential of Google's online mapping technology.
Despite much international condemnation, the Sudanese president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, has essentially told the world to mind its own business, dismissing reports of the crisis as exaggerated.
The Bush administration is sending another top envoy, the deputy secretary of state, John Negroponte, to deliver another "strong message" to the Sudanese government.
There has been talk of stronger sanctions such as travel bans on some Sudanese officials, confiscating the savings accounts of Sudanese politicians connected with the government-backed Arab militias, called the janjaweed and even a no-fly zone to stop air attacks on villages in the area. Meanwhile, the crisis has worsened.
Even China, which has invested heavily in Sudan's oil industry, is showing signs of impatience with Mr al-Bashir and this week again urged him to accept UN troops to reinforce the weak and ineffective African Union contingent of 7,000 troops trying to cope in an area the size of France.
As the politicians try to get to grips with the Darfur genocide, the US Holocaust museum and Google are doing their bit to keep up the public pressure for action.
"When it comes to responding to genocide, the world's record is terrible. We hope this important initiative with Google will make it that much harder for the world to ignore those who need us the most," said Sara Bloomfield, the director of the Holocaust Museum.
