‘UN must prevent genocide’

NOBEL Peace Prize recipient Elie Wiesel yesterday urged the United Nations Security Council to act before the killings in Sudan’s Darfur region escalate into genocide.

The Holocaust survivor described the conflict as “a tragedy which if not stopped will become a genocide. If the Security Council does not act it will be blamed for history”.

Mr Wiesel and Oscar-winning actor George Clooney were scheduled to address UN Security Council members at an informal briefing late last night.

Mr Wiesel said he would remind the Security Council of the genocide in Rwanda when urging action in Darfur. “Nobody did anything. It remains a mark of shame for the UN and the whole world,” he said.

George Clooney said: “The situation in Darfur is not getting better, it is getting worse. We need the international community to commit all of its resources to bring an end to this extraordinary suffering. The critical hour for Darfur is now.”

Clooney and his journalist father, Nick Clooney, spent five days in Darfur in April, gathering personal stories of the death and suffering that has ravaged the region. Both Clooneys have continued working to publicise the plight of refugees.

More than 200,000 people have been killed and over two million have fled their homes since 2003 when ethnic African tribes revolted against the Arab-led Khartoum government.A May peace agreement signed by the government and one of the major rebel groups was supposed to help end the conflict in Darfur. Instead, it has sparked months of fighting between rival rebel factions that has added to the toll of the dead and displaced.