More than 400,000 people have died in the Darfur region of the Sudan. Three million others have been made refugees. The cause: An ongoing campaign of genocide by government-supported militias. Some say that the world has not seen such calculated slaughter, rape, starvation and displacement since the Rwanda genocide of 1994.

Jane Alao had fled southern Sudan only to return to the strife-torn Darfur region two years ago to help establish the Amel Centre for the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Victims of Torture. During a special luncheon held in conjunction with the AFT convention, Alao accepted the 2006 AFT Bayard ­Rustin ­Human Rights Award on behalf on the center, which offers medical treatment, legal aid, psychological counseling and other services to victims.

Alao, a social worker, spoke movingly of counseling the “traumatized women and girls” who have been victims of rape and other forms of violence, most often by government-supported militias.

In presenting the award, AFT president Edward J. McElroy said that the center is an institution “working to ­create change and save lives in the midst of one of the worst human disasters ever.”