HILVERSUM, Netherlands (AFP) — For an hour each morning, two small rooms in central Netherlands become a lifeline for refugees in war-torn Darfur, cut off from the world and massed in dire camps thousands of kilometres away.
At 7:30 am Sudanese time (0430 GMT), Radio Dabanga starts broadcasting its daily programme in five local languages to the remote western Sudan region witness to one of the world's worst humanitarian emergencies.
"Radio is the only way of reaching the people of Darfur," Leon Willems, director of the Dutch non-governmental organisation Press Now behind the initiative, told AFP. "It is what sustains life."
Hence the name -- Radio Dabanga, from an Arabic word for a large terracotta pot that holds a family's food reserves.
The programme started in December 2008 to fill "a need for independent information", said Willems. It operates out of facilities at Radio Netherlands Worldwide, a public radio and television network based in the city of Hilversum.
"Other international stations are present here but they are not aimed solely at Darfuris and do not broadcast in the local languages," he said. Read more >>>>>>>>>
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