Making noise for Darfur

World Refugee Day was marked with a loud protest by the Sudanese community and friends on June 20 in Hyde Park, to call for urgent action over the crisis in Darfur that has left more than 400,000 people dead. Eighty people participated in the rally — organised by the Darfur Action Network (DAN) and Caritas International — including leaders of the Sudanese community in Melbourne.

DAN spokesperson Abdulhadi Matar said: "We want to put pressure on the Australian government to stop the genocide in Darfur. We are calling on the Australian government to send troops to the area to provide logistical, technical and policing assistance."

"While 3 million or so people have been displaced in the last four years, 99.9% of families are still in Darfur, so we are disappointed that the Australian government has refused to send troops. We feel the government has abandoned us", explained Matar.

DAN can be reached at http://www.darfuraustralia.org.

From GLW issue 715