Sam Brownback: “I join my colleague from Ohio in supporting this amendment that will put forward $95 million in emergency aid to the…”

“I join my colleague from Ohio in supporting this amendment that will put forward $95 million in emergency aid to the Sudan. I thank him for bringing this forward. I thank the Chair for holding a hearing on this recently to highlight what is taking place. He outlined what is occurring. This is happening before our very eyes. I associate myself with my colleague's statement that we need to say to people around the world that when genocide occurs, we will respond. There will be consequences on governments that conduct genocide in their nations. What we are seeing taking place today is something on a massive scale before our very eyes. We had satellite photographs appearing today. We see vast sections of communities wiped out, burned out. We see militias going in, backed by the government, burning communities, poisoning wells, putting dead animals down in the bottom of wells so they are not usable. This is a marginal region in the first place, where, if you push people out of their homes and away from their encampments, it is difficult to survive. We now have by estimates about 1 million people on the move in this region. We have, by estimates, the capacity to feed 300,000 people, with 1 million people on the move. One can see that if the situation does not improve, we are going to have a large group of people who are not going to get fed, housed, and are vulnerable. Many will die. Many will perish. We are going into the rainy season in this region.”