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"Heart of Darfur" launched in London |
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The Heart of Darfur -- the first book to get right into the centre of the human tragedy -- has been launched in London.
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| Lisa French Blaker |
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The war that rages in Darfur has shattered the lives of millions of people. Images of their plight fill our newspapers and TV screens .
When atrocities from Darfur flash across the screen, the easiest thing
in the world to do is to reach for the remote control and move to
another channel.
But what is the daily life like in Darfur for those who are trying to do something, however small, to help?
In Heart of Darfur, Lisa Blaker's account of a life as a nurse has the opposite effect to the deadening images from the news reels; it sensitizes us to the bloodshed and famine, which continue to ravage Darfur. She spent nine months in Darfur.
By turns hopeful, cynical and shocked at her own weakness, Lisa take us behind the headlines and into the frontline of Darfur, giving a heart-breakingly honest account of a small medical team battling disease, violence and worldwide indifference.
Faced with babies dying of dehydrating, children shaking with advance malaria and patients with horrific injuries, Lisa weaves the stories of her patients into her own work of small successes and failures.
In this book, the people of Darfur are not silent, wide-eyed victims, but loved colleagues, women pushing to get their sick babies seen or village elders to keep the community together despite appalling odds.
Lisa Blaker writes candidly about her encounters with those in power, particularly the military, who are supposed to protect the people of Darfur. Lisa's dreams are haunted by the emaciated babies and the rotten corpses of boy soldiers.
The tale of Darfur is not a comfortable story. The staff she worked with were sometimes beaten, some abducted and threatened, their lives put at risk for simply doing their job.
Is it worth the effort to work in impossible conditions in Darfur? What comes through is the sheer tenacity and commitment of the medical teams in the area to make difference, whatever the odds they face.
Heart of Darfur is a testimony to the worst and best of human nature. When Lisa helps a woman give birth or gives water to a baby, who would otherwise die of dehydration, she remembers why she went to work in Darfur. And when she sees the dignity and determination of the people of Darfur, she knows that there is a glimmer of hope.
Lisa Blaker has worked as a nurse in conflict zone all over the world with the humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières.
More information:
Read an extract of the book
A special article written by Lisa Blaker for nightingaledeclaration.net
The Heart of Darfur by Lisa French Blaker: published by Hodder & Stoughton.
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