AllMovie

In a time when the United Nations has declared Darfur as "the world's worst humanitarian crisis," filmmaker Camille Nielsson ponders the future of the western Sudan region's children in a documentary that portrays the raging strife as seen through the eyes of an innocent 15-year-old girl named Sumaya. Sorely lacking in food, medicine, water, and shelter, these children are forced to watch helplessly as the nomadic Janjaweed militia clashes with land-owning farmers and their closest family members are casually brutalized, raped, and executed. The children represent a staggering 50 percent of displaced people in the region, and even in the perceived safety of cramped refugee camps, they are not safe from the soldiers, who prey on women when they venture out to collect firewood. After escaping a Janjaweed attack on her village, Sumaya volunteers at a center for traumatized children as Nielsson's lens provides a much-needed voice for those who are incapable of standing up for themselves.