• Reuters, Wednesday, April 11, 2007 10:45 AM

Little more than two weeks after Google came under fire for replacing satellite images of New Orleans with pre-hurricane Katrina data on its Google Maps service, the Web giant, in conjunction with the Holocaust Memorial Museum, announced that it would provide current images of the war-torn Darfur region in Sudan, where some 200,000 people have been killed since 2003.

Using high-resolution imagery, Google Earth users can zoom into Darfur to view more than 1,600 damaged or destroyed villages, in an attempt to provide the average person with better evidence of the genocide. The Sudanese government has repeatedly denied that genocide is taking place.

According to Reuters, the remnants of more than 100,000 homes, schools, mosques and other structures in Darfur are now visible on Google Maps. These are believed to have been destroyed by the janjaweed militia. "When it comes to responding to genocide, the world's record is terrible. We hope this important initiative with Google will make it that much harder for the world to ignore those who need us the most," said Holocaust Museum director Sara Bloomfield in a statement. Added Elliot Schrage, Google's vice president, "At Google, we believe technology can be a catalyst for education and action" --although he had nothing to say about the replaced images in New Orleans.

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