In two days I depart for a month of reporting on the Darfur crisis from eastern Chad. Guerrilla News Network is helping me raise cash to cover the roughly $5,000 in expenses. Check out our campaign:
Welcome to the Guerrilla Journalism Fund, GNN’s experiment in crowdfunding reporting. In our first assignment, the GNN community donated almost $2,000 to fund David Enders’ reporting from war-torn Lebanon. For our second assignment, we’re helping freelance war correspondent David Axe (pictured) report from Darfur. Here is his appeal:
After five years and 300,000 dead, the developed world is finally, belatedly, doing something about Darfur. This spring the European Union began deploying 4,000 peacekeepers to eastern Chad in order to protect refugees and aid workers. It’s a small first step towards stabilizing the region — and one fraught with danger. In January a French soldier was killed by Sudanese troops when his vehicle accidentally strayed into Sudanese territory. With famine and Khartoum’s political maneuvering only complicating the situation, it’s an open question whether the peacekeepers will make a difference.
I was in Somalia last winter, covering the Ethiopian occupation and the growing humanitarian crisis (now Africa’s worst). It was heartbreaking to see such suffering — and equally discouraging to know that most people in Europe and U.S. just didn’t care. I believe that vivid, courageous journalism, adequately resourced, can help change people’s attitudes. I’m headed to Darfur in June — and I need your help to pay for the travel and supplies. Together, we can shine a little light on Darfur, and on the embryonic international efforts to end the crisis.
Update: $1,270 so far. Thanks, everyone!
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[...] Robert Farley at Lawyers, Guns, and Money reports that David Axe is raising money for a month long expedition to Chad. [...]
even more discouraging than people just not caring is the US government actively encouraging the chaos in somalia by supporting the ethiopian occupation.