Some destroyed villages in Darfur, Sudan, visible on the new high resolution imagery added to Google Earth on October 3.

For more context, see this post at Ogle Earth .

Genocide - The attached file contains placemarks for almost 600 destroyed villages in Darfur. Some of them are so recently burned that you can see the ashes. In many if not most valleys of Darfur, _every_ village is destroyed. Nothing is left.

What can we do about this?

A destroyed village
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A normal village (so far)

Thank you very much OgleEarth and blt for posting this!

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What can we do about this?

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A question that often arises in these forums is "why is such-and-such an area in lo-res?" and alternatively "why is such-and-such an area in hi-res?". We see it again and again as users of Google Earth are disappointed to see their own home town in low res yet North Korean missile installations and bombed out Iraqi towns are in such glorious high-res.

And now Darfur. Lots of it. In high-res for our voyeuristic googlings from the comfort and safety of our homes and offices around the world.

I feel that each and every one of us, reading this on our screen, is in a position to help those less fortunate. The very fact that we are sitting in front of a computer worth more than some of these families will earn in their lifetime is proof enough.

So please, click on one of the links below and send the money you were going to spend on that new flat screen to Darfur. Or even that new USB stick. Or even just one tank's worth of gas! Anything. Let's each one of us click and send and by forgoing (or even just postponing) and item of such unimaginable luxury help out one of these families whose villages and lives we are perusing.

Ok?

Plan International I really recommend this organization because it is a regular (small) commitment that goes toward ongoing support. You won't even feel the blip on your credit card every month but it will go toward building wells and schools and helping people help themselves. It also has low overheads and is non-religiously affilliated which appeals to me personally.

A good article from the BBC with lots of links to organizations where you can donate (such as Oxfam, Unicef, Red Cross etc) and a little bit of information about each of them.

Help Darfur Now is a non-profit organization formed by New Jersey high school students, committed to providing much-needed financial aid to refugees and refugee camps. The charity has no overhead (all expenses are donated) so that almost 100% of the proceeds contributed to the organization go toward Darfur relief efforts.

Global Impact Is a coalition of U.S. charities who help in many parts of the world including in this case Darfur.

SaveDarfur This is a coalition of organizations who also have background to the crisis on their website and, while they do accept donations, also push for political pressure.

Of course there are many other avenues to donate but I would urge you to please do it right now while it is fresh in your mind and you obviously have a couple of minutes to spare otherwise you would not be looking at Google Earth would you?

Thanks!!

This is an amazing disturbing collection. Thanks for putting it together. If everyone who read this gave something , it would make a difference.

While looking into this, I found some excellent new maps of Darfur, by Centre for Development and Environment at University of Berne, Switzerland.
They can be found here.

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The Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs has responded to the growing demand for maps and geographical data by UN partner agencies, regional organisations, international and local NGOs, as well as local and regional authorities in the Sudan. The decision was taken by the federal department to finance the production of a series of maps for the Sudan.

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Also check out the links at the botton of the page.

These maps would make some great overlays.
But they're simply huge, 15119x10747 pixels, and there's 6 of them!
They would have to be cut into many smaller parts, and overlayed seperately.
Does anybody have the patience for that?

This is pretty incredible stuff. Thanks a lot for posting this, and I hope that these images can help bring new focus and attention to an overlooked and yet ongoing catastrophe.

Nils - I do hope these posts can draw some attention to the destruction. It's one thing to hear of it and quite another thing to see it so directly. At least we can attempt to document the Darfori villages we can see. btw, I've added a number of additional placemarks to the original post. There are now over placemarks marking destroyed villages.

I'll try to be as short as I can. In third world countries, also in fourth and fifth world countries, happen a lot of problems that cannot be explained by the common sense and logic that govern the mentality of the first and second world countries's people. No Kantian moral, no Russell logic, no Cartesian common sense in these places. People, and their governors, function in a particular way that we don't understand. Perhaps our contribution can help the people that -apparently- are suffering some events, perhaps no. There is no warranty that our help will help. Even the resources that you do to some institutions do not go down until the people that need it. The corruption in these countries is spreaded everywhere, every site of the country. Is not my opinion not to help, or that is not a disaster. It is a disaster, no way. But, what we can do is the question.

Hi Dioneo and welcome to Google Earth!

Of course you are absolutely right. There is corruption everywhere including 3rd world countries. Some see donations as a "band aid", some even object to the idea saying it stifles development. There are many views on the matter and, as you correctly state, it remains an open question of just how much difference one individual's contribution is going to make to the overall picture.

Some people prefer to support organizations that aid in development (for example education, infrastructure and so on) rather than emergency food or medical supplies. That is fine and there are strong arguments in favor of this view.

Some people prefer non-denominational charities, preferring to see their money going toward food or digging wells rather than bibles. That is fine too, notwithstanding the mostly very excellent record religiously-affiliated charities have had for centuries and many still do.

Some people prefer to contribute with their time instead of money. Be it in the realm of political agitation, lobbying, volunteering, what have you. That is fine too.

And some (I hope many) play a small role every day : when they go shopping, for example (eschewing coffee from a multinational, say, in favor of something like FairTrade , or in their choice of companies and organizations they chose to do business with. That is fine too.

The reason I posted that particular message in the first place was because I was struck by the new imagery available over Darfur at the time. It seemed an almost painful juxtaposition, to be sitting there viewing all this destruction from the comfort of my own home and knowing that millions more around the world were doing likewise. Plus someone had posed the (possibly rhetorical) question "what can we do?" and so I replied with a couple of suggestions. What you say about corruption is quite true and I think that every person will take considerations such as those on board when they make their own personal decisions about what they 'can do'. However I don't think it means we 'can do' nothing. We can. Simply being aware of it is a start - and for this, Google Earth is a marvelous tool.

Thank you again for your comment and I hope you have a lot of fun browsing this crazy and beautiful planet!