Vivid imagery and painful stories filled the Weasler Auditorium Tuesday night as a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist spoke about his experiences on covering the genocide in Darfur, Sudan.

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof shared stories about his dangerous journeys to Africa while noting historical context to a nearly full house that included students, faculty, staff and community members.

"I can't get these images out of my mind," Kristof said about going to Darfur.

Two years ago, Kristof went to an oasis along the Chad-Sudan border and found 30,000 people who had been driven out of their village and were taking shelter under the trees.

"They were getting no international help; no aid had arrived," Kristof said.

After seeing children alone and talking to people under the first four trees, Kristof realized at that moment the "depth of the atrocities" and the scale of it.

"This is another genocide on our watch even though as we say, 'Never again,'" he said.

Kristof also explained the history of the tensions in Sudan and how the government calls the incidents a matter of "tribal conflict." He said the genocide in Darfur is not a policy of extermination by the government, as the term genocide might connote.

He also addressed the question of the worthiness of aiding Darfur.

As a foreign correspondent, Kristof said, he has seen many terrible events; however, "nothing, I find, gets to me quite so much as Darfur, for you have a government deciding as a matter of policy to choose people on the basis of their tribe or skin color and kill them and rape them and mutilate them."

"The only way, in turn, for us to assert our own humanity is to stand up to it, and that is precisely what I'm afraid we are not doing now," Kristof said.

Kristof said Darfur must be put on the international agenda.

"The challenge is to put enough pressure on the U.S. government, which is your job," he said.

The message of the speech was put in a lively, yet painful context, said Barrett McCormick, a political science professor who also heads the Marquette Darfur Action Coalition, a recently created organization that aims to petition government officials to act concerning the genocide.

One criticism of the speech made by a community member was that Kristof did not get to the root the problem.

Yvonne Ochilo, a 2005 graduate of Carroll College who has applied to Marquette's Law School, said she came to the speech to compare what she has heard and learned with the experiences of Kristof, who has been in Darfur and could offer a "fresh perspective."

However, Ochilo — a Kenya native — felt the speech only skimmed the surface.

"I don't think we got to the root of the problem," said Ochilo, who wished there was more time to get to that root. "To me it was incomplete."

Ochilo said she respects Kristof's bravery and experiences, but would have liked him to include more history and cultural context of Africa "to explore causes and effects of modern-day conflicts and genocides."