On May 3, 2006, a commission of Sudan activists and leaders in the movement to stop genocide and slavery in Sudan embarked on a week-long fact-finding and relief mission in Southern Sudan and Darfur.

The commission included American Anti-Slavery Group (AASG) Associate and Sudanese survivor of slavery Simon Deng, returning to his homeland for the first time in sixteen years; AASG Executive Director Liora Kasten; Christian Solidarity International’s John Eibner and Gunnar Wiebalck; and radio talk show host and longtime anti-slavery advocate Joe Madison and wife Sherry Madison.

The commission’s purpose was two-fold:

• To deliver essential humanitarian aid and relief in the form of food and survival kits.
• To determine the needs of the Sudanese from top Southern Sudanese officials and the victims themselves — an increasingly difficult task as fewer and fewer are willing to venture into the country’s unstable territory.

The group met with top Sudanese officials, including president of Southern Sudan Salva Kiir. The direness of the situation was most poignantly illustrated, though, through conversations with thousands of Southern Sudanese and Darfuri refugees — many of whom, like Simon, had recently escaped slavery. The accounts of their daily struggle to find food and shelter revealed that—despite the recently brokered peace treaty between the Sudanese government and rebel groups in Darfur — the suffering of the nation’s civilians is far from over.

The commission found the following:

• Despite agreements signed by the Government of Sudan, the genocide process continues in both Northern and Southern Sudan.
• Hundreds of thousands of displaced Black Sudanese are in danger of dying this rainy season (May-September) because of continuing violence, and the lack of food, shelter, seed, clean water and medicine.
• Tens of thousands of Black Sudanese remain enslaved in Darfur and neighboring Kordofan.
• Promised "peace dividends" have not been delivered by the United States and other nations to Southern Sudan, and are therefore not likely to be delivered to Darfur in the immediate aftermath of the signing on May 5 of a peace agreement between Khartoum and one rebel faction in Darfur.
• The fledgling Government of Southern Sudan is a potential source of stability for Sudan. But its institutional development has been stymied by U.S. policy — e.g., the failure of President Bush to meet with Southern Sudan's President Salva Kiir. (The pledge made by President Bush to Sudan Campaign activists on April 28 to meet with President Kiir raises hope of a positive shift in U.S. policy.)