Google and USHMM Highlight Darfur Genocide
Most people are aware of the ongoing genocide taking place in the Darfur region of the Sudan.
Google added high resolution imagery of Darfur to Google Earth, taken by DigitalGlobe in January-March 2006, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum “has joined with Google in an unprecedented online mapping initiative.” From the USHMM web site:
Crisis in Darfur enables more than 200 million Google Earth users worldwide to visualize and better understand the genocide currently unfolding in Darfur, Sudan. The Museum has assembled content—photographs, data, and eyewitness testimony—from a number of sources that are brought together for the first time in Google Earth.
To load the KML file in to Google Earth, click here.
It’s fascinating and horrifying at the same time, and one of the more timely and effective uses of GIS I’ve seen in quite a while. It’s a great way to raise awareness of a humanitarian crisis that doesn’t seem to get much press coverage in the US.