Olympic Athletes in Darfur

Over the past 5 years, the country of Sudan has gained major publicity, particularly in the city of Darfur. Unfortunately, that publicity and attention has come because of a horrific mass genocide. The UN has estimated that nearly 400,000 people have died from violence and disease over the past few years. And on top of that, over 2.5 million have been displaced as of October 2006 Hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women, and children have been taken away from their homes to be child soldiers, sex slaves, or to be murdered. Recently this genocide in Darfur has gained more attention, and many people are now putting much needed pressure on the Chinese Government and attempting to boycott the 2008 Beijing Olympics. China has been involved with the corrupt Government of Sudan by selling AK-47’s and other weapons to the country.

Many Darfur activists in the western world may be campaigning for a boycott of the Beijing Olympics in an attempt to pressure China into ending its aid to the Khartoum Government of Sudan. . But for a small group of young men from Darfur feel that Beijing is a place for their dreams to come true.

In the wake of this crisis in Darfur, Sudan athletes are pursuing their own glory in the 2008 games. Because of the limited numbers of athletes in Sudan, the country has never been known for producing any Olympic heroes.

The genocide in Darfur has become so brutal and disturbing for so long, that it’s been a shame that there has been very little attention brought to it until the past few years. In the past year, many influential characters have spoken out against China and decided to boycott the Olympic games. This last February, movie director Steven Spielberg resigned his position as artistic director of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Spielberg has decided to take away his time and energy away from the Olympic ceremonies to focus on bringing more attention to the unspeakable crimes against humanity in Darfur.

Many of the Olympic hopefuls in Darfur are upset about the boycott. Ismail Ahmed Isamil, a 23 year old 800m runner from Darfur said, “This talk of boycott makes me angry. We have people on the team from Darfur who are running. If we lost the chance of the Olympics we would have to wait another four years for that chance again.”

Winning a medal in the Olympics means so much to these men that some of them have teamed up with rival tribes. Family members of West Salieh