Nicholas Kristof
Side by side with the worst of humanity, you regularly encounter the best. And so it was that while covering murder, rape and starvation in Sudan, I was awed by a heroic refugee, Naima Adam.
I’m on the Chad-Sudan border, reporting on atrocities against Black African ethnic groups in Sudan — wrenchingly similar to the Darfur genocide here two decades ago. To report here is to appreciate that “evil” is not just an archaic Hebrew Bible term but also a force still powerful in the 21st century.
And yet: When civilization collapses and we humans are tested, some people reveal themselves as sociopaths, but a remarkable number turn out to be saints like Naima.
Naima, 48, is a member of one of the Black ethnic groups that have been targeted by destructive extremists in Sudan’s Arab leadership. Four times in the past 20 years, Arab marauders have burned her home in their efforts at ethnic cleansing of non-Arab groups, and the janjaweed Arab militia murdered her husband nine years ago.
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