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October
23, 2006
VOL.
44, NO. 18Oakland,
CA
Church leaders join pleas to save people of Darfur
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Bishop Thomas G. Wenski of Orlando,
Fla., head of the U.S. bishops’ international policy committee,
has joined other religious leaders in pleading for more efforts to”end
the killings, rape and wanton destruction” in the Darfur region
of Sudan. 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 last month. 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, 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.
