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Global rallies held for Darfur
16/09/2007 19:06 - (SA)
London - Celebrities, activists and human rights groups across the globe joined demonstrations on Sunday to urge world leaders gathering this week for the UN general assembly not to look away from the crisis in Darfur.
In London, scores of activists donned black blindfolds - symbolising the international community's failure to act since vowing to stop atrocities in Darfur two years ago.
Demonstrators in Rome wore white T-shirts with a bloodstained hand on the front and marched to the Italian city's central Piazza Farnese. They carried a peace torch, which they said was lit in Chad where hundreds of thousands from Darfur now live in refugee camps.
Organisers - who planned protests in more than 30 countries, including Australia, Egypt, Germany, Japan, Mongolia, Nigeria, South Africa and the United States - said some in the international community had become complacent since the UN Security Council approved plans on July 31 for a 26 000-strong peacekeeping force for the vast, war-battered region in western Sudan.
The deployment of the joint African Union-United Nations peacekeeping force faces delays, however, due to a lack of aviation, transport and logistics units, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said last month.
In the meantime Darfur's violence has increased, organisers said. Campaigners are demanding that the force be deployed swiftly, and that the international community put pressure on all sides in the conflict until attack on civilians stop.
'Rape, torture, murder. How much longer for Darfur?'
"The world has acknowledged the atrocities in Darfur. And its leaders have promised to end them. Now they must fulfil that promise," said Colleen Connors from Globe for Darfur, a coalition of aid groups working in Darfur.
"The meeting of world leaders in the next two weeks is a critical juncture for the people of Darfur," she said. "We simply cannot afford to look away now."
In London, demonstrators carried signs reading "Stop genocide in Darfur" and "Rape, torture, murder. How much longer for Darfur?"
Actors Matt Damon, Don Cheedle, supermodel Elle MacPherson and Archbishop Desmond Tutu are among the celebrities who appear in a video filmed for the day in which they hold up slogans demanding action.
"The people of Darfur need peace and they need it now. To make peace a possibility governments should push for an immediate ceasefire and supply the peacekeepers they have talked about for months," Damon said.
Tutu called Darfur "the world's largest concentration of human suffering," adding "it's also entirely avoidable if people speak out".
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