The Darfur region of Sudan has been kept firmly within the sights of humanitarian organizations from around the globe in the last several years. And in that time, technological developments on the Web have enabled greater search capabilities as well as provide individuals throughout the world to connect with one another. Facebook, for instance, is now very much an international brand. And Google is, well, Google.
So it is a rather interesting to find the UK-based group Aegis Trust, which is official coordinator of the Wanted For War Crimes campaign, promoting the use of mainstream services from both companies to gain support and assistance from the public to locate individuals suspected of crimes inflicted on the residents of Darfur. According to Tendai Maphosa of Voice of America, the Humanitarian Affairs Minister of Sudan, Ahmed Mohammed Harun, and Janjaweed militia leader Ali Kushayb, are both charged by the International Criminal Court with “over 40 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Darfur in 2003 and 2004.” And through connections established on Facebook through the War Crimes Wanted List, an application officially launching this Sunday, as well as an custom Google Map and Spreadsheets mashup (a Google Earth layer has also been created) with which to view data on locations where either suspect has been seen, they hope to increase the effectiveness of their campaign.
Sudan is the largest country by land mass on the African continent, so a mashup of this kind is likely to prove somewhat useful in maintaining an public profile on the individuals’ whereabouts given the impossibility of creating a current, real-time view of their situation(s).