NEWS
Kirk pleads for urgent action in Darfur
The Kirk is to express its "outrage at the inability of the Sudanese government and the international community to protect the people of Darfur."
The General Assembly this May will be told that the international community has failed to address "the organised violence that has killed so many and driven countless others from their land and livelihoods."
Sudan has been convulsed by five major coups in its 48 years of independence. Indeed, for all but 11 of those years, it has been engulfed in civil wars which can only in part be explained by conflicts between north and south, Muslim and Christian, Arab and African, but which are much more complex than that. The country’s government was described by a recent visit of British MPs as "dysfunctional." 
Darfur refugees:
one million displaced
The Kirk’s Church and Nation Committee, which recently met with the UK’s special representative in Sudan, Dr Alistair McPhail, will point to the plight of the four million people who have had to flee their homes to escape the fighting in the country.
In particular, the report will highlight the fate of the people of Darfur, where the Janjaweed, a government-armed militia, have been blamed for killings, rape, violence and the destruction of settlements on a huge scale. Amnesty International estimates 30,000 people in the region have been killed and more than one million internally displaced. 
Kirk members will be urged to pray for and raise money to support the very difficult work of aid agencies in the region. The report urges the UN and the African Union of States to recognise the scale of the tragedy, and to strive further to make the peace deal agreed on 9 January a workable one, seeking a constitution for Sudan that enshrines a freedom from discrimination on ethnic or religious grounds. 
However, the committee's report also makes pointed reference to the fact that two UN Security Council members - China and Russia - are major suppliers of arms to the Sudanese government, and that the existing peace deal does not cover the conflict in Darfur.
Ends
GA\05\04\05
25 April 2005