Trinity Graduate Amy Costello ’92 Reports on the Sudan on PBS' FRONTLINE/World

January 11, 2005: Trinity graduate Amy Costello ’92, who is currently a freelance journalist based in South Africa, reported a segment on Darfur, Sudan, one of the most dangerous regions in the world, on PBS’ FRONTLINE/World on Tuesday, January 11, 2005. The Darfur segment was one of three features that aired on the nationally-broadcast television program.

Amy Costello ’92 was a history major, SGA president and scholar athlete. She writes: "As many of you know, the US Congress has declared that genocide has taken place there and the Sudanese government is accused of gross human rights violations. I traveled with camera woman and producer Casey Herrman for three weeks through Sudan. In our report, we meet with rebels, government officials, Arab militia and some of the two million Sudanese who've been displaced by the fighting."

In its fourth season premiere, FRONTLINE/World travels to three of the world’s most dangerous regions: Iraq, Sudan and China. FRONTLINE/World reporter Amy Costello travels to one of the world’s danger zones—Sudan—where war in the western region of Darfur has claimed more than 70,000 lives and produced more than two million refugees. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell recently termed the actions of the Sudanese government genocide.

In a nearly one-month tour through the conflict-stricken Darfur region, Costello travels with troops from the African Union (AU)—the only peacekeeping force operating in Sudan. She also tours Darfur’s sprawling refugee camps, meets with the Janjaweed, Arab nomad militias who have been accused of raping and killing innocent civilians and burning their villages, and later meets members of the Sudanese Liberation Army, who are battling Sudan’s government.

Back in the capital of Khartoum, Costello interviews Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail about Powell’s charge of genocide. He alleges that Powell does not believe this and was pressured to make the charge “because of the U.S. election.” “Any legitimate government would put down an armed rebellion,” he continues. “War is war.”

Ghazi Atabani, a former advisor to the Sudanese president, tells Costello, “If the United States is keen not to have another hot bed for terrorism, they have to realize that if the center of authority in Sudan collapses, that means the Somalization of Sudan.”

As the crisis escalates, Costello tours a refugee camp recently bulldozed by the Sudanese government, who say they want the refugees to return to their villages. Walking the ruined landscape of the Al Jeer camp, Costello says, “It is hard to imagine any words, even one as powerful as genocide, fixing such a broken place.”

For additional information about this FRONTLINE/World report, including an online version of the broadcast after it has aired, visit http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld

Amy Costello has covered a wide range of topics throughout Africa as a freelance radio, television and print journalist. She has encountered many dangerous situations to “get the story.” As Africa correspondent for BBC/PRI’s The World radio program, Costello has traveled extensively around the continent. In Kenya, she covered the elections, which brought an end to President Moi's 24-year rule. She traveled to Mombasa, the site of a deadly terrorist bombing, for a story on Islam in East Africa. She reported on food shortages in Swaziland, Malawi and Ethiopia. In South Africa, she traveled two miles underground to report on grueling working conditions for HIV positive mineworkers, and she's reported on political unrest in Zimbabwe. Costello has reported many stories about children in Africa; spending time with child soldiers in Sierra Leone, child workers in Ivory Coast, and AIDS orphans in Johannesburg. Read her first-person account of her experiences as a journalist, first published in the Trinity magazine and available on Trinity’s web site.