Seated on a woven mat in a refugee camp in eastern Chad, Dr. Sondra Crosby of the Boston Medical Center listened with mounting distress as the women of Darfur came forward, one by one over 12 days, to tell her their stories of rape, beatings, hunger, and humiliation.

Their suffering had begun in the ravaged villages of their native Darfur in western Sudan after war broke out in 2003, but it didn't stop when they fled across the border into what they hoped would be the safety of refugee camps in eastern Chad. It goes on still, leaving thousands of women facing the specter of sexual assault each time they leave camp to collect firewood or visit the local market.

It is an endlessly unfolding tragedy the world hasn't summoned the will to do much about.

six years into the conflict, no one had yet fully grasped the extent of the crisis of sexual crimes, and the relentless toll it is inflicting on its victims.