Pictiúr as Darfur

Publication Instance Details #1315

Publication Overview

Translation	Is Multilingual	Explicit Irish Context?	Ekphrasis	Has Paratext?	Reference to News, Media or Technology
No	No	No	No	No	Yes

Details

Human Rights Issues	Poverty/Deprivation/Lack of Sustenance Genocide
Languages	Irish
Genre	Short Lyric
Medium	Print Anthology
Notes	This poem describes 'pictures from Darfur' - a war-torn region of Western Sudan on the continent of Africa. War broke out in 2003 when revolutionary groups accused the Sudanese government of oppressing non-Arab citizens. The government responded to this by committing ethnic cleansing against Darfur's non-Arabs. In this poem, the focus is on a young girl, who is near death due to hunger and deprivation, caused by the ongoing conflict. She is described as a 'human sacrifice' for those who are the cause of her hunger. The speaker of the poem describes the camera man taking her picture, while the 'badhbh' - a mythological harbringer of death in Irish folklore - waits patiently above.