Wide Angle
Season 7, Episode 1 of 7 :  Heart Of Darfur

With the Darfur Peace Agreement in shambles and fears rising that the region is headed for a new cycle of bloodletting, Heart of Darfur provides an eyewitness account of what the U.N. Secretary-General has called "the largest humanitarian crisis in the world." Granted access to the capital city of North Darfur in Sudan, Wide Angle reports from Al Fasher, once a sleepy desert town of 30,000, but today home to 100, 000 refugees and 10,000 U.N. personnel. The film captures the desperation of daily life in Al Fasher's sprawling Abu Shouk refugee camp and travels beyond Al Fasher into the volatile rebel-held areas of Sudan to portray the lives of black African villagers who get up every morning to face yet another day filled with threats of looting, murder and rape by Sudan's pro-government Arab militias, known as the Janjaweed. Our cameras follow "the busiest man in Africa" - charismatic General Martin Luther Agwai, commander of the new combined U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force for Darfur - on a mission as he helicopters into hostile areas attempting to coax rebel leaders and some of the Arab tribes into joining the negotiating table. Despite leading the world's largest peacekeeping operation, Agwai, the former head of Nigeria's armed forces, acknowledges the limitations of his role: "We are not here to compel any peace. We are here to work with the Sudanese people - both the government and the parties - to assist them to find peace." After five years of fighting in Sudan, an estimated two-and-a-half million people have fled their homes, more than 200,000 have been killed, and two thirds of all Darfuris - some 4.3 million people - need humanitarian assistance of some kind. Heart of Darfur provides a nuanced report from the heart of an international crisis.