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Throughout the last year the humanitarian situation in the Darfur region of Sudan has continued to deteriorate. It has long been acknowledged that action must be taken, yet despite the severity of the situation it seems very little progress has been made to stop the bloodshed and suffering. For many it is too late, nothing can be done.

Sudan became an independent nation in 1956, but since its inception it has been wrought with civil war between the Muslim north and the primarily Christian south. In 1972 a peace agreement was reached that gave the south autonomy, and for a period of 11 years there was relative peace. Then civil war broke out again in 1983, following the discovery of oil in the south and the declaration of Islamic law by the north. The war between the north and south has continued throughout the last 21 years despite numerous regime changes in the north and the emergence of various factions of rebel forces in the south. Attempts were made to bring about peace without much success, until last year when the government of Sudan and the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement signed a historic agreement that officially brought the 21-year civil war to an end.

In February of 2003 a separate conflict began in the west in a region known as Darfur. Rebel groups in Darfur complained of being marginalized and neglected by the northern government in Khartoum. They claimed that the Muslim leadership has favored Arab nomads in the region over the African farmers. The Khartoum government responded by mobilizing an Arab militia known as the Janjaweed. The Janjaweed ride throughout the region mounted on horseback and camel, attacking non-Arab villages and towns, often after government planes have bombed the area. Witnesses have accused the Janjaweed of burning villages, kidnapping and enslaving children, contaminating water sources and systematically raping women.

Many believe the Janjaweed are using rape as a form of ethnic cleansing. Within Sudanese culture children carry the lineage of their father, so if a rape victim becomes pregnant the child would be considered Arab and would most likely be rejected by the community. One news reporter told of a town in central Darfur in which 400 women said they had been raped by Arab militiamen. It is difficult to estimate exactly how many women have been attacked. Many women are afraid to admit that they have been raped, and some claim the government threatened them to keep quite.

Humanitarian agencies estimate that more than 300,000 people have died as a result of the conflict and 2 million more have been forced to flee their homes. Approximately 200,000 refugees have fled the country and the rest have settled in camps throughout the region. Those in refugee camps still live in fear of the Janjaweed and are suffering from disease and starvation. Tens of thousands of people are without shelter or sanitation, receive no food aid, and have to drink contaminated water. Militiamen often attack anyone who ventures away from the refugee camps to search for food and water.

Humanitarian aid organizations have had a very difficult time gaining access to the region (mostly because of government restrictions). Both the US and the UN have threatened to bring additional sanctions against the Sudan if it does not take steps to disarm the Janjaweed and allow humanitarian aid to enter the region. The Sudanese government has agreed to cooperate, but has since made very little progress.

Sudan has been on the US State Departments list of states that sponsor terrorism since 1993. The UN Security Council imposed sanctions on Sudan from 1996 to 2001 because of its involvement with terrorism. The Islamic Arab government that controls most of the country - which is plagued by internal conflict - has provided sanctuary to terrorists and has let terrorist groups plan and carry out operations from within its borders.

Sudan has given shelter to Islamic and Middle Eastern terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda, which used Sudan as its main operational and training base from 1991 to 1996. Since the September 11 attacks, international investigators suspect it has become a financial hub for the terror network. Al-Qaeda operatives have reportedly smuggled large amounts of gold into Sudan.

Sudan has also harbored members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Lebanese group Hezbollah, and others. These terrorists do not carry out attacks within Sudan but plan and support terrorism elsewhere. Hamas and Hezbollah have reportedly maintained training camps in Sudan. The National Islamic Front, the strict Islamist party that governs much of Sudan, does not consider any of these groups terrorist organizations.

Baby Knauer was born in late 1938 in Nazi Germany. Sadly, one of the new infant's legs and part of one arm were missing when he was born. He was also born blind. His grieving father wrote to Hitler and requested permission to have doctors put his son "to sleep." Hitler had the matter investigated and gave the father and doctors his thumbs up. Not only Hitler, but the German doctors involved agreed that there was "no justification for keeping the child alive."

Within a few months, a system began to be set in place to euthanize infants born with birth defects or congenital diseases. It wasn't long before Hitler began "cleansing" his regime of disabled adults as well. Hitler's Germany denied the intrinsic value of human life, and it led to the murder of millions of people.

While Germany no longer supports legalized euthanasia, their neighbor to the west - the Netherlands - has practiced legal assisted suicide for many years now. Not only are they killing off the terminally ill, but the plain ill, the elderly, and now the very young are also at risk.

In 2004, Groningen University Medical Center in the Netherlands admitted that it has been practicing infant euthanasia for years. The Dutch government has not officially legalized infant mercy killing, but it isn't prosecuting doctors who perform it.

It's a hard issue, of course, because the Dutch infants who have been euthanized have been killed under the condition that they have a terminal, painful illness or defect with no prospect for improvement. It's easy to sympathize with parents who sit and watch their baby suffer day after day while doctors tell them there's no hope for recovery.

Yet, just as there is with adult assisted suicide, there are two major problems. First, doctors can be wrong. A "terminal" illness may take years or decades to run its course. People for whom doctors have said, "There's no hope" have recovered after all.

Secondly, once the door to "mercy killing" is opened, then doctors and patients do not necessarily stop at the prescribed guidelines. There are multitudes of cases in the Netherlands today in which doctors have assisted a patient commit suicide without proper consent. People can decide to die or be aided in dying for reasons that have nothing to do with terminal illness or physical pain. When doctors feel free to end the lives of terminally ill infants, it's not long before they become willing to kill those who are merely disabled.

You cannot ignore the intrinsic value of human life without finding that all human life is put in jeopardy. According to the Dutch organization Cry For Life, at least 3000 lives have been ended without consent in the Netherlands. In other words, the common use of assisted suicide has made doctors in Dutch hospitals feel free to murder 3000 of their patients.

Ludwig Minelli, the founder of Dignitas - a clinic in Zurich Switzerland which helps medically ill people commit suicide - now wants to help the mentally ill end their lives "competently." His basic reasoning is, "If they want to die, let them. In fact, help them so they don't mess up and just permanently injure themselves." He's willing for long-term depressed people, or Alzheimer's patients to seek suicide as an end to their suffering.

"Minelli does not understand that attempting suicide is a call for help," said Dr. Peter Saunders, general secretary of the Christian Medical Fellowship. "Once the physical and psycho-spiritual needs are met the desire for suicide tends to go away. It is laughable to suggest that someone with Alzheimer's, who cannot remember two minutes later what they told you, could have the capacity to understand and weigh up and make a decision on suicide. The potential for abuse is horrendous."

Then, there's Leslie Lemke. Lemke was born in Wisconsin with cerebral palsy, glaucoma, and brain damage. His eyes were removed and he is totally blind. He has an extremely limited vocabulary and cannot care for himself. Yet, he plays the piano with a virtuoso's skill. He plays by ear, capable of repeating the most complicated piano pieces, even while they are still being played to him. Audience members can shout out a song, and he'll play it from memory.

Had Leslie Lemke been born in Hitler's Germany, he would certainly have been killed. If he were born in today's Netherlands, he might be considered unfit to live. Yet, thank God that our Creator does not look out the outward appearance (1Sam 16:7). He looks beyond our physical, and even our mental, deformities or weaknesses, and He sees what beautiful things He can make of our lives - if we let Him.

But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty (1Cor 1:27).