Yad Vashem urges Darfur action

By · April 29, 2007

Yad Vashem urged the United Nations to stop the genocide in Darfur.

“It is not
sufficient for the international community to issue condemnations, and
statements via the United Nations, while this Khartoum-sponsored genocide is
taking place,” Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev and the head of its council,
Yosef Lapid, wrote Sunday in an open letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon.

“Concrete steps must be taken; we must do everything to ensure that the
Security Council will decide to send troops to Darfur who will be able to
restore security. Every day that passes adds thousands of names to the list of
dead.”

Sunday is the Global Day for Darfur, where hundreds of thousands have
been killed by government-backed militias in recent years.

“As the heads of the
Jewish people’s central organization for commemorating the Holocaust – a
genocide that took place while the world was silent – we feel a special
obligation, as we discussed with you during your recent visit to Yad Vashem, to
raise the alarm on Darfur,” Lapid and Shalev wrote.