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About the drawings

The Children’s Drawings are evidence of the dignity and agency of children who have endured unspeakable horrors, from Darfur’s genocide starting in 2003, to the near total destruction of Sudan in the war which started April 2023.

These resilient, resourceful artists made it clear to us that they were survivors, not victims.

We have sought to honour their legacy through the drawings’ regular use in museum exhibitions, by lawyers, educators, researchers, and media professionals. The children’s drawings were accepted as contextual evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur at the International Criminal Court (ICC) when former President Omar Al-Bashir and three other high-level accomplices were indicted by the Court. Originals of the drawings now reside on permanent loan at The Wiener Holocaust Library.

In April 2024 we launched a book featuring the children’s voices.

DARFUR CHILDREN’S DRAWINGS

Over 500 Darfur Children’s Drawings were obtained in 2007 by Waging Peace researcher Rosemary Monreau. Rosemary conducted a three-week fact-finding mission to a refugee camp in eastern Chad, to which hundreds of thousands of Darfuris fled during the height of the genocide in 2003 in their home region.

The aim of the mission was to assess the humanitarian, human rights, and security situation in the region, and to collect testimonies from Darfuri refugees.

For fuller details about the origins of the Darfur children’s drawings listen to Waging Peace’s podcast with Rosemary Monreau, formerly operating under the pseudonym Anna Schmitt.

NUBA CHILDREN’S DRAWINGS

The Nuba Mountains Children’s Drawings were obtained in December 2018 by Waging Peace Co-Executive Directors Sonja Miley and Maddy Crowther on a trip to a refugee camp on the border of Sudan and South Sudan, where tens of thousands of individuals from the Nuba ethnicity have fled from war and conflict in the Nuba Mountains since 2011.

Replicating Rosemary’s methodology 11 years earlier, Sonja and Maddy distributed pencils and paper to children from the Nuba Mountains, asking them to draw anything they wanted to show the world.

The Co-Executive Directors returned with 60 images of the children’s experience of the war, and images of Nuba culture. The Nuba drawings, like the Darfur drawings, depict targeted persecution against black African civilians at the hands of the Sudanese government and their proxy militias.

KHARTOUM CHILD’S DRAWINGS

A further child’s drawing, from Khartoum, was obtained in 2019 after the massacre in the capital on June 3rd outside military headquarters.

The massacre was perpetrated by Janjaweed militia (rebranded as the Rapid Support Forces) and the Sudanese Armed Forces, and was intended to disperse peaceful protesters during the people’s peaceful revolution of 2018/2019.

What the children drew

This young boy’s drawing depicts the attack on his village, carried out by Janjaweed forces (on horseback) and the Sudanese Armed Forces (in vehicles mounted with machine guns, and tanks). The attackers are shown wearing green military uniforms.

The attackers worked together to set the village on fire, while also pursuing and shooting at the displaced and fleeing survivors. Some of the victims, portrayed lying on the grond, lost their lives in the attack. All the displaced survivors in the drawing are depicted as women and children.

Additionally, there is a soldier depicted at the top of the drawing, kneeling and prepared to shoot using an anti-tank weapon, which has a devastating impact on humans.

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في هذا الرسم يصف الصبي الصغير الهجوم علي قريته بواسطة قوات الجنجويد (على ظهور الجياد) معاً مع القوات المسلحة السودانية (في سيارات مزودة بمدافع رشاشة وعلي الدبابات). كان المهاجمون جميعاً يرتدون الزي العسكري السودانى الأخضر. عمل المهاجمون معاً علي إحراق القرية ومطاردة وإطلاق النار على الناجين والفارين. يظهر بعض الضحايا ملقون على الأرض وقد فقدوا أرواحهم في الهجوم، كما يُظهر الرسم جميع الناجين الفارين هم نساء وأطفال. علاوه على ذلك يظهر في الجانب العلوى من الرسم جندياً راكعاً على ركبتيه ومستعداً لإطلاق النار مستخدماً سلاح مضاد للدبابات والذي له أثرٌ مُدمر على الإنسان.

The drawing depicts two distinct events. In the upper portion, a Sudanese Armed Forces soldier on a pickup truck mounted with a machine gun is shown shooting at a woman who is fetching water from a borehole.

In the lower portion, a plane is shown bombing a herder who is accompanied by his goats.

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يُظهر الرسم حدثين مختلفين. في الجزء العلوي، جندي من القوات المسلحة السودانية على متن سيارة مثبت عليها مدفع رشاش يطلق النار على سيدة كانت تجلب الماء بدلو من بئر. وفي الجزء السفلي، طائرة تقصف راعياً مع أغنامه.

This image was drawn in 2019 by an eight-year-old girl who witnessed the Khartoum massacre on the 3rd June 2019.  The slaughter of innocent civilians at the ‘sit in’ left at least 128 dead. Bodies were thrown into the River Nile, there was widespread sexual violence against protesters, and countless others were disappeared.

رُسم هذا الرسم بواسطة طفلة تبلغ من العمر ثماني سنوات وهي كانت شاهدة علي مجزرة/ مذبحة الثالث من يونيو 2019 أمام مبني القيادة العامة بالعاصمة. أرتكبت المجزرة ميليشيا الجنجويد (التي أطلق عليها لاحقاً إسم قوات الدعم السريع) والقوات المسلحة السودانية، وكانت تهدف إلى تفريق المتظاهرين السلميين. ذُبح المدنيين الأبرياء بساحة الإعتصام، وقد خلف ذلك على الأقل 128 قتيلاً، وألقيت الجثث في نهر النيل، وكان هناك إنتشار واسع النطاق لحالات العنف الجنسي ضد المتظاهرين كما إختفى عدد لا يحصى لضحايا آخرين.

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