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.

According to the BBC, Zoe’s Ark maintained that tribal leaders assured them that the children were orphans from Darfur with no known relatives.

The six were convicted of kidnapping in Chad and sentenced to eight years hard labor and after major negotiations, relocated to French prisons. On Monday March 31, however, Chad’s President Idriss Deby pardoned all six and they were released—in February France helped Deby turn back an attempt to overthrow him so this is viewed by many as a strategic diplomatic move on his part.

I am still gravely concerned.

Let’s take Zoe’s Ark at face value— naïve do-gooders seeking to save children from the dangerous and war torn region of Darfur. Their biggest mistake was that despite their total lack of experience in geopolitical affairs, human rights, and diplomacy, they choose to carry out this mission independently.

On their website they make their case using the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN Convention on the Rights of a Child. They site the right to asylum from the UDHR and the UNCRC’s affirmation that States should will a child’s attempt to flee his or her country as a refugee, as the basis for their actions.

Their zeal caused them to perceive these two documents as superhero-mission charges: Operation Rescue the Children from Danger in Accordance with the UDHR and the UNCRC!!!

Very laudable and commendable… except for the tiny detail that they ended up “rescuing” the wrong children.

They needlessly traumatized 103 Chadian children and damaged the credibility of other children’s aid organizations.

So what’s my point?

Children are the most common victims of war and violence. They need us to volunteer, donate, get politically active, etc.

They don’t need inexperienced pseudo-superheroes suddenly deciding to rescue them.

Be a real hero:

War Child International is on the ground in El Geneina, West Darfur, Sudan working with the youth within the refugee camps. Get involved in their amazing efforts.

SOS Children’s Villages have two locations within Sudan- one in Kartoum and another in Malakal. Sponsor a child living there.

Go all out and volunteer in Southern Sudan with Advance-africa.com. You will get a chance to work with children, refugees, and families from Darfur.

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.

Yet, as a New York Times article discusses, according to UN estimates, total aid to Somalia is under $200 million (Darfur receives a billion). It is near impossible to work within the country. UN officials have been jailed by the government, aid workers have been shot, road blocks charging as much as $400 a truck abound, and pirates off the Somali coast have attacked UN Ships full of food.

An organization called SOS Children’s Villages, an international orphan charity, has a hospital in Mogadishu in Somalia. Due to fighting this past December, the hospital had to be evacuated after which most of the hospital staff were arrested. The director, Ahmed Ibrahim wrote a report about his visit. I’ve included a quote from this report to illustrate the circumstances these people are facing:

“There is no guarantee [of safety for the staff and families]. Even when I was there one of the security guards left the village to go home and was shot dead by snipers.”

“The hospital is still closed because no one can get to it […] we are in the middle. These guys fire from behind – the others reply. So we have to make sure that the place is protected so that we can operate in safety before we reopen.”

“In Mogadishu there is no safe place. And as we don’t know when the crisis will be over we decided to scatter them [the displaced families] through Mogadishu. So that if one place is attacked they can move in with another family somewhere else until we can find them a new place.”

Outside Somalia things are not much better. Abuka Albadri is a Somalian journalist who writes for varios media outlets including the Los Angeles Times. He left Somalia In August 2007 after receiving an anonymous call telling him he was about to be killed. In an article he wrote for the LA Times he talks about his personal experience as a Somali refugee:

“Since leaving my home, I’ve bounced from country to country around East Africa, trying to find one willing to accept someone with a passport from Somalia. I was threatened with arrest in Djibouti for overstaying my visa; kicked out of Somaliland for being a “foreign” journalist; welcomed by Uganda, but only as the country grappled with an Ebola outbreak; and finally allowed into Kenya after paying an exorbitant $700 fee. In keeping with my unlucky streak, two days after I arrived in Kenya, the country held its disputed election, ushering in weeks of violence and inter-ethnic killing.”

Those who don’t have the ability to seek refugee independently end up at one of the camps along the Somali-Kenyan border such as Dadaab. Over 160,000 refugees reside in Dadaab, Kenya, 97% of whom are Somali. Many have lived in these camps since 1991. An article in the Mail & Guardian Online quotes Aden Mohammed, an 18 year old living in Dadaab, stating,

“If one has nothing to do when he is hungry, he can do anything,” He goes on to say that once he exhausts his educational options within the camp he will fight on the side “whoever will bring peace”.

Darfur has received tremendous attention over the past few years thanks to the uprising of the global community in protest of genocidal practices. Somalia has been at war for so long that in many ways it is forgotten on the international stage. It is time to stop this.

There are children turning 18 this year who have grown up in this conflict. Some may never have been outside their refugee camp.

Check out these sites for more info:

CARE refugee camps in Dadaab, Kenya

Sponsor a Child through SOS Children’s Villages