WASHINGTON (CNS) – As people around the world joined peace rallies, concerts, prayer vigils and even a "yogathon" to press for action to bring peace to Darfur in Sudan, the head of the U.S. bishops' international policy committee and others pleaded for more efforts to "end the killings, rape and wanton destruction."
Events in dozens of cities drew tens of thousands of people on or around Sept. 17, which was designated by peace groups as Global Day for Darfur.
Bishop Thomas G. Wenski of Orlando, Fla., the committee head, said despite hopeful signs of a peace agreement in the spring conflict has been mounting among rebel groups, the Sudanese military and its proxy militias, known as the Janjaweed.
The offensive "has trapped innocent and defenseless civilians in the middle of the fighting," Bishop Wenski wrote in a statement released Sept. 15 in Washington. And with the deteriorating situation, it has become "a deadly challenge" to deliver humanitarian aid to the 2.5 million people who have fled their homes and another million who are at risk of starvation, he said. A dozen aid workers have been killed since June.
He warned that the cycle of violence in Darfur threatens to spiral completely out of control. "With more people being displaced, an already alarming state of insecurity that has hampered efforts to deliver humanitarian aid may degenerate completely," he said.
Bishop Wenski said the U.S. bishops support a resolution authorizing the United Nations to take over an inadequately equipped and understaffed peacekeeping effort by the African Union, and the appointment of a special envoy to focus diplomatic attention on a lasting solution.
In New York, Franciscan Father Michael Perry, consultant on Africa for Franciscans International, urged people to call members of Congress, write letters to the White House, pray and to educate others about the situation in Darfur.
In a letter to Franciscan friars and "partners in ministry," Father Perry explained that more than 400,000 people have died in Darfur and another 300,000 face the immediate prospects of hunger and starvation.
"Darfur is the size of France and has a population of over 6 million," he wrote. The war began in 2002 as a local revolt by farmers and others against the government's abuse of rights and its failure to provide protection from marauding raiders. Although the government and the main rebel group signed a peace agreement in May, neither side has respected it, Father Perry said.
In recent months the government has progressively blocked international aid agencies from delivering food and medical supplies to civilians who have been forcibly displaced by helicopter gunships, bomber planes and military forces. Rebel groups also have committed atrocities and not respected cease-fire agreements, he said.
At one of the Sept. 16-17 weekend's many Darfur events, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor of Westminster, president of the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, said at a London rally that the situation in Darfur is "catastrophic in terms of the violence, the murders, the displacement of people."
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