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The Darfur Action Committee built a mock refugee camp in the Court of Sciences on Monday to illus

Students walking through South Campus passed what resembled a refugee camp on their way to class Monday.

The mock camp was set up by the Darfur Action Committee, a coalition of UCLA student groups committed to ending the humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan.

The refugee camp is one of the events that the committee is holding this week as part of “Crisis in Darfur: A Week of Awareness, A Call to Action.”

The display featured makeshift tents composed of tarps and pieces of cardboard held up by branches strung together with twine.

Its slipshod construction mirrored that of the Chadian refugee camps to which more than 213,000 Sudanese have fled as a result of the ongoing violence in Sudan’s Darfur region.

The conflict between rebel groups and government-backed militias in Sudan has claimed more than 70,000 lives and forced the displacement of more than 2 million people, according to the United Nations. President Bush has called the conflict genocide, and the United Nations, though it has not recognized the conflict as genocide, has called it the “worst humanitarian crisis in the world today.”

The Darfur Action Committee’s display, set up in the Court of Sciences outside Young Hall, was supplemented by photographs of real refugee camps in Chad – the location of most of the camps harboring Sudanese refugees. The pictures of malnourished infants, deserted villages and dead bodies left laying unburied in the sun served as grim reminders of the aftermath of the violence.

“This isn’t meant to offend people,” said Bridget Smith, a fourth-year international development studies student and committee member. Its purpose, she said, is to educate the UCLA community about the plight of those living in Chadian refugee camps, which are overcrowded and inadequately equipped to accommodate the millions of traumatized Sudanese seeking refuge.

Smith and other members of the Darfur Action Committee – some of them wearing green headbands and bracelets – urged passersby to sign letters to legislators, passed out fliers, and sought to recruit volunteers.

“The whole movement has been represented in green,” said Matt Sablove, a fourth-year international development studies student and committee member.

The committee is selling bracelets for a $2 donation. The money raised through this and other fund-raisers taking place this week will go to the Genocide Intervention Fund, a private organization that directs donations to the African Union peacekeeping troops.

The African Union peacekeepers seek to protect Sudanese citizens from the violence of the militias and rebel groups, offering protection rather than aid. Other relief organizations, such as Oxfam and USAID, focus on humanitarian relief.

Donations to humanitarian organizations, while also needed, are less effective, Sablove said.

“The humanitarian aid isn’t getting delivered to the (refugee) camps because of security issues,” he said.

The Sudanese government has been accused of diverting aid away from its intended causes, which is just “another component of the genocidal tactics,” said Sarah Novick, a fourth-year sociology student and member of the committee.

While humanitarian aid addresses the symptoms of the conflict, supporting the African Union peacekeeping troops creates a possibility for peace because it offers a solution to the conflict, according to the fund’s Web site.

The committee said they chose to hold the event in South Campus because of its relative underexposure to advocacy events.

“It was definitely a conscious decision,” Novick said.

“This part of campus isn’t incorporated into these kinds of events,” said Kristen Thompson, a fourth-year international development studies student and one of the display’s organizers.

Overall, the committee was pleased with the response it received.

“People seem to be taking notice,” Thompson said.

The mock refugee camp will move to Dickson Plaza today, where it will be on display through Thursday.