New Jersey Jewish News
Monmouth County Feature Story
A NJ doctor treats young Darfur victims
As a long-time volunteer for Doctors Without Borders, Dr. Jerry Ehrlich has served in some of the world’s most dangerous, war-torn locales, including Sri Lanka, Haiti, Chechnya, and the Republic of Georgia. But the seasoned veteran said he was not prepared for the devastation he witnessed in Darfur in the summer of 2004 at the Kalma refugee camp.
Ehrlich, a Cherry Hill pediatrician, is trying to increase public awareness of the atrocities happening in Darfur and to counter American apathy to the suffering there. He has been telling his story at colleges throughout New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, including a March 9 stop at Brookdale Community College in Lincroft. The program was sponsored by the school’s Center for Holocaust Studies.
Along with his first-hand observations of the horrific impact of the genocide on Darfur’s overall population, Ehrlich smuggled out almost 400 crayon pictures drawn by the area’s children, together with a series of documentary slides. It was a dangerous undertaking, since it was illegal to take any pictures and photographs out of the country; however, Ehrlich managed to bring back samples of both, many of which were shown to the Brookdale audience.
He took several hundred pieces of drawing paper and boxes of crayons with him when he went to Darfur. He distributed them to the children at random and smuggled their renderings out of the country hidden in the folds of American newspapers. His translator and several student nurses at Kalma put their lives in jeopardy to help him, Ehrlich said.
The children’s pictures are painfully revealing: They portray bombs falling from planes onto their villages, bodies scattered on the ground surrounded by the color red, helicopter gun ships firing on civilians, women’s and children’s bodies exploding in red as they are struck by ground fire, and men in uniform representing the Sudanese army firing automatic weapons directly into thatched-roof huts, which are then set ablaze. Women and children are seen fleeing from the Janjaweed (the word means “Devil on horseback”), Arab militia groups charged by the United Nations with the rape and murder of countless victims.
“This is their reality — it’s the typical vision of a child in Darfur,” said Ehrlich in an interview with NJ Jewish News. “This is what they see every day of their lives, morning, noon, and night. None of the drawings show anything peaceful or childlike; they all portray death and destruction, which are the components of their world.”
Several of the drawings have been printed in The New York Times and have been posted on Web sites, others have been sent to the International Criminal Court in the Hague, where Ehrlich hopes the perpetrators will one day be tried for crimes against humanity. He also takes the pictures to every speaking engagement. Their impact on an audience is palpable, he said.
“I’ve observed people viewing them in stunned silence, while others start to quietly weep,” he said. “They think of pictures that have been drawn by their children and grandchildren, showing green grass, a bright yellow sun in the sky, and flowers in front of a comfortable home. Then they see the contrasts drawn by the Darfur children and can’t believe that death, destruction, and cruelty are the only frame of reference these young people have. Nothing I can say can equal the impact of those pictures.”
Ehrlich often wonders how the children would react if they knew their drawings have been seen by audiences in many venues.
“These children have never been away from the region in which they were born,” he said. “The farthest many have gone, since being displaced, are the refugee camps in Darfur. They can’t conceive of the outside world as we know it.”
When Ehrlich arrived at Kalma, there were approximately 45,000 displaced people waiting there; when he left two months later, the population had grown to 75,000, he said. At present, there are more than 100,000 refugees in the camp, which still has little food, water, or electricity, he added.
The camp is crammed with thatched-roof huts that are covered with plastic sheeting. The small dirt-floor dwellings house up to six people. Kalma’s medical clinic, which housed at least 200 patients at all times, was built by local laborers and provides the only available safe haven for the local population, Ehrlich said.
Each morning, long lines of women and children would wait patiently to see the medical staff; Ehrlich would perform a quick visual diagnosis to weed out the most critically ill children, who were then immediately brought inside the medical tent. These were the children who would have succumbed outdoors if they had to wait several hours until a routine examination could take place, he explained.
Most of the young patients suffered from severe malnutrition, as evidenced by their emaciated bodies, distended abdomens, protruding ribs, sunken eyes, and failing renal and immune systems, said Ehrlich.
“There was one two-year-old boy I’ll never forget,” he recalled. “His mother told me he used to run around and play. Now, all he could do was lie there, cradled in his mother’s arms. I saw this kind of scene over and over again.”
He often tried to engage the stricken children by holding their hands and speaking to them in a gentle voice. However, he was usually greeted with blank stares, the result of the post-traumatic stress disorder that will take a generation to undo, Ehrlich said.
Ehrlich would often crawl among the hundreds of patients and administer immunizations and IV fluids. Although some international humanitarian aid organizations have sent quantities of food and medical supplies to Darfur, more provisions are needed, since the demand for the supplies always increases, said Ehrlich.
“I can’t understand why there is not more outrage and response from the world community,” he said. “U.S. aid seems minuscule. A U.S. disaster relief group sent blankets — that was all I saw.”
Despite the abhorrent conditions, Ehrlich said he urged his patients to be hopeful, telling them that the world will one day come to their aid.
“I have to believe that — I have to believe that they will have a tomorrow,” he said.
And he has a ready answer for those who question his Darfur mission.
“I’m often asked why I volunteered to go to this land of atrocity and unspeakable horror, and what I thought I accomplished,” Ehrlich said. “Sometimes children would recover and go home, and a smile would replace the blank look on their faces. That’s what I accomplished.
“The Old Testament says he who saves a life saves the world,” he continued. “That’s why I went to Darfur, and that’s what I’ll remember.”
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