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'Rwanda/After, Darfur/Now': Photos for Change

Tens of thousands have been killed and more than two million refugees forced from their homes during three years of rape, killing and looting in the Darfur region of Sudan.

The conflict between the Islamic government in the capital of Khartoum and rebels in the west has spilled into neighboring nations with the potential to destabilize the whole region.

Given the scale of the crisis -- and the horror of genocides that have come before -- it's hard to believe that one individual can make a difference. But photographer Michal Ronnen Safdie, herself the granddaugher of Nazi concentration camp survivors, believes in the power of images to spark change for the better.

In 2002, she traveled to Rwanda to document the war crimes tribunals, where some of those who orchestrated the slaughter may finally receive justice. More recently, she traveled to Chad, just across the border from Darfur, to document what has been labeled a government-orchestrated ethnic cleansing.

Forty of those powerful images are currently on display at Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles, in an exhibit called "Rwanda/After, Darfur/Now."

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.