Google Earth Maps out the Crisis in Darfur

Referred to by many in the United States as the first genocide of the 21st century, more than 200,000 people have been killed in the Darfur region of western Sudan since the on-going civil carnage began there in the summer of 2003.

Now, in a special partnership with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Google Earth has launched an online mapping system that seeks to provide evidence of the genocide taking place in the Darfur region. Sudan's government denies that any such atrocities are occurring.

Using revolutionary, high-resolution imagery, “Crisis in Darfur” gives more than 200 million Google Earth users from around the world the ability to zoom into Darfur from above to view first-hand the more than 1,600 villages and 100,000 homes, schools and mosques that have been destroyed in the region.

The purpose of this initiative is to offer the outside world a better understanding of the violence that is occurring in this volatile region, with the opportunity to act on it. Future mapping initiatives between Google Earth and USHMM are planned in the hope of preventing genocide in other unstable regions around the world, before it is allowed to begin.