Doctor shows he is without borders, but with heart
Goes to Darfur to help sick children; brings back prohibited photographs
BY JENNIFER AMATO Staff Writer

NORTH BRUNSWICK - Dr. Jerry Ehrlich proved he has no borders in terms of providing medical care when he visited Sri Lanka and Darfur to aid their sick.

The pediatrician began privately practicing medicine in Cherry Hill in 1966. He read an article about Doctors Without Borders in April 1991 and decided he wanted to travel overseas with the humanitarian aid organization.

His first trip was to Sri Lanka that September, after having an interview at the organization's headquarters in Paris. Within a few days he found himself in the small island off the coast of India, and spent one year there during their civil war.

Then, in June and July of 2004, he visited Darfur, the western region of Sudan in Africa. He spoke to a group of social studies students at the North Brunswick Township High School on March 7 about his time there.

Ehrlich said Sudan is the largest country on the continent, and means "black" in Arabic.

In 1914, Darfur was incorporated into Sudan but has since faced years of discrimination, neglect and genocide after the Darfurians revolted against the Sudanese Khartoum government. The conflict began in 2003 with the Sudanese military and the Janjaweed militia group fighting against rebel groups.

Ehrlich said 95 percent of the villages in Darfur have since been bombed.

The mud, brick and thatch huts resemble typical African villages, but because of the fertile land and potential for oil reserves, the Chinese government, as well as Sudan, has a more specific economic interest in the region.

He said Darfur has a population of 2.5 million, and already a half-million have been killed, with almost all of the rest of the residents displaced.

He said the death rate is impossible to accurately track, especially since the Sudanese government refuses to admit that genocide is occurring and that the camps exist.

"If it doesn't stop, the truth is Darfurians are going to be like the Holocaust survivors," he said.

Ehrlich spent the first 10 days at the Kass camp and then went to the Kalma camp, where the population doubled from 30,000 refugees to 60,000 while he was there, and is now home to more than 100,000 Darfurians. He said two to eight people live in straw huts covered with sheets, and they use a giant latrine in a huge pit that is covered over when full. Only one out of 10 children goes to school.

From top: Pediatrician Jerry Ehrlich visited Darfur in 2004 to treat sick children through the Doctors Without Borders humanitarian aid organization. The refugee camp at Kalma in Darfur, Sudan, is filled with straw huts covered by sheets, and large latrine pits for everyone to use. A child from Darfur drew this picture of what life is like in the country, which is plagued by genocide.

"The Sudanese government says this is not true, that they are living very comfortably in their villages and that what you read in the newspaper is propaganda, propaganda by Western countries who want to recolonize Sudan, and by humanitarian aid organizations looking for money," Ehrlich said.

But Ehrlich tells a different story. He said he stayed in a large, concrete dormitory with large rooms and cots, where he shared a bathroom with 12 other people. He had to keep his scrubs, running shoes and socks on the floor, along with a duffel bag. They would eat breakfast and dinner there, eating lunch at the camp, with all of the meals prepared by local cooks.

The physician said the first thing he would do every morning is "crawl through a sea of humanity and make an eyeball analysis." There were eight wards with about 200 patients a day. He would observe patients from about 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., sometimes doing more work or studying at night.

Ehrlich showed photographs of some of the patients, and described how ill the children were. Some were so weak all they could do was lie down. Lungs were predisposed to pneumonia, kidneys could not handle normal amounts of salt and water, diarrhea was rampant, eyes were sunken, ribs were exposed and immune systems were compromised due to malnutrition.

He said there was an epidemic of measles before vaccines arrived from Europe, but that one in four children who were malnourished died from the rash.

"These families have had to walk days or weeks across the desert … because they're escaping to a place that is a safe haven, but during this transit there is no adequate food or water," he said.

Ehrlich also showed a picture of a small boy with vascular collapse. He needed an intravenous needle, but since his veins collapsed, a needle had to be placed into the tibia bone in his leg into the bone marrow while his father held the tubing. The drip was needed for three to four hours until a standard IV could be administered. The doctor said that in a normal emergency room, the child is sedated, the doctor wears gloves and the room is clean.

"Here, we use bare hands on a dirt floor with a long needle - just this mom holding the child," he recalled.

Ehrlich said most of the women he saw suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, and had distant, expressionless looks on their faces.

Yet he also showed a woman who ran a coffee and tea shop, whom he would visit every day, and two nurses who assisted him, and two doctors he was training to care for the sick, and a woman who was smiling once her baby was treated.

"It says in the Old Testament, 'He who saves a life, saves the world.'Maybe this is all I did, this one life," he said. "The people of Darfur don't deserve what's happening to them."

Ehrlich said he risked his life taking photographs, which were illegal.

"Taking pictures in Darfur was prohibited. You had to get a special permit fromthe Sudanese government and had to have someone monitor you. These are pictures they did not want you to see," he said.

He also asked the children to draw pictures of their lives, which again could have cost him his life if caught. He brought 20 boxes of crayons and 400 pieces of drawing paper, and wound up collecting 157 pieces of artwork from children leaving the medical center.

He stuck them between his syllabus in his daypack during the day, and then kept them within a bulky Sunday edition of The New York Times he had so that anyone checking his belongingswould not see them.

One picture showed houses on fire, airplanes dropping bombs, people running away and people lying on the ground.

Another depicted the Janjaweed, or the "devils on a camel," who were known for throwing live children into burning huts, stealing livestock, killing men and throwing their bodies into wells in order to contaminate the water supply, and gang-raping women in front of their parents, Ehrlich said.

Another picture showed what appears to be an armed Sudanese soldier, in camouflage, shooting into a house. The drawing was published on the front page of The Star-Ledger in 2004, and the doctor said this led to indictments for crimes against humanity, although the Sudanese government tried to shelter the incident.

Yet another picture showed the Janjaweed, and people shooting the flag of Sudan. There were some flowers drawn, but they were displaced among a burning village.

"Again and again, they are depicting the violence, the atrocities, the horrors they have witnessed, through the eyes of a child," Ehrlich said.

Ehrlich said he has no contact with the other doctors or his translator because the Sudanese government knows what is going on, despite its denial.

He said the Sudanese ambassador to the U.S. attended a presentation he gave in Highland Park three years ago, and Ehrlich does not want to endanger the life of anyone he was with over there.

"You kids are the future, and unfortunately, this will not be the last genocide… because governments can produce genocide because they know they can get away with it. If you know about it, maybe you can help prevent it."