When will Darfur’s nightmare end?

AT the end of 2004, more than 18 months after the fighting began, one of the members of our Amnesty International group visited the Darfur region of Sudan to give advice to an international NGO about addressing the issue of rape and sexual violence in the war.

Since then our group has joined with many others in campaigning for justice in Darfur, for the Sudanese government to end its genocidal aggression towards the people of Darfur and for the international community to act decisively to prevent further murder and mayhem.

Sadly, it feels that all this campaigning has been in vain.

Two-and-a-half years later the letters we write are still saying the same things — asking the international community to put pressure on the Sudanese government through sanctions and to enforce UN resolutions to deploy peacekeeping forces in the region.

What does change, however, are the numbers involved. When we began writing we were talking about 70,000 Darfurians dead and 1.65 million displaced.

The latest figures being quoted are between 200,000 and 300,000 dead and 2.5 million displaced. It seems these numbers will continue to rise until the whole population is devastated.

And the Sudanese government continues to defy all calls for justice, even using troops recently to prevent a UN humanitarian delegation from visiting a refuge camp in Darfur. Recently a group of leading European writers and intellectuals added their voices to the clamour for justice by sending a letter to EU leaders at their 50th birthday celebration summit, citing the atrocities in Auschwitz and Srebrenica as evocative of the current situation in Darfur.

Maybe it is time for all of us who feel strongly about this situation to stand together and scream from the rooftops that the genocide has to end and the UN has to act to bring peace to the region. On April 29, Amnesty International and partner coalitions and organisations will be coordinating a third Global Day for Darfur and events will take place across Ireland to highlight the situation there.

Other organisations in Africa, the Middle East and Asia will also be taking part in this global event.

We call again on our Government to bring all the pressure it can to bear on the UN to implement resolution 1706 and to work most urgently to find a peaceful solution to the horror that has become the daily life of millions.

Dr Joan Giller

Schull Amnesty

International Group

Schull

Co Cork