Tony Hall: “I have just returned from a visit to Sudan's killing fields. As we all know, a civil war in that country has raged for…”

“I have just returned from a visit to Sudan's killing fields. As we all know, a civil war in that country has raged for 15 years and slavery is alive and well in this last dark corner of our world. But the situation is more desperate today than it has ever been. During my 4-day visit to the famine-stricken areas, I saw vultures pick clean the bones of people and their cows. They are slaughtering people and livestock alike, seizing human beings as slaves. One picture all the way over there, these are terrible, awful pictures, but we have a lot of pictures like that, that were just slaughtered and vultures just picking their bones. I also saw hundreds of survivors at aid stations. Many had lost their families along the way, and many will not survive. This little boy is one of them. I have not seen anything like what I saw in Sudan last week since I first saw Ethiopia's great famine in 1984, not in Rwanda, not in Somalia, not in North Korea, not anywhere. Today, 700,000 people like this are facing starvation in Sudan. If help does not arrive in the coming weeks, the planting will not be done and the crisis will continue into next year. This House, this country, indeed this world must do more to help these people. They are innocent. They are absolutely destitute, and they are being starved and slaughtered.”