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Written by Jacqui Banaszynski

Photographed by Jean Pieri

The story was published in St. Paul Pioneer Press and Dispatch on Sunday, April 7, 1985

Please click on the image to download the full PDF file of the original print.

EDITOR’S NOTE:

Reporter Jacqui Banaszynski and photographer Jean Pieri spent February traveling in the Eastern Region of Sudan, witnessing one of the most compelling stories in the world today.

This special section is an account of that journey. Reporters usually try not to let their personal feelings interfere with their reporting. Banaszynski kept her facts in reporter’s notebooks and her feelings in a private journal.

After reading both, it seemed obvious the story was one that should be told from the heart as well as the mind. So Banaszynski’s reporting is interspersed with entries from her journal, which are dated in italic type.

Their story begins on their last day in the field, in a graveyard near the Wad Kowli refugee camp, where life ends for so many refugees. From there the story is told chronologically, beginning in the Twin Cities. They then go to Khartoum to report the reasons behind the famine.

Finally comes the most important part of their journey – sharing the lives of the refugees and the relief workers from the Minnesota-based American Refugee Committee.

For those of you who wish to help the people whose lives make up this section, relief agencies working in Sudan are listed on Page 13.

— Deborah Howell, Executive Editor