More than 6,000 miles away, hundreds of thousands of people have died in a bloody civil war, and a group of UW-Madison students want their peers to care.
Action in Sudan is a UW-Madison student organization that strives to promote awareness of the genocide in Darfur, Sudan. The group is also trying to build support and aid for humanitarian relief efforts in Darfur and push for increased U.S. and international pressure on the Sudanese government to stop attacks and to help citizens and refugees.
According to the CIA website, more than 400,000 civilians have been murdered and thousands of women raped in Sudan's western region of Darfur by Sudanese government soldiers and members of the government-supported mercenaries known as the Janjaweed.
Approximately two million Sudanese civilians have been driven from their homes, their villages burned and property stolen by the Sudanese military and the militia. While some have been able to escape to Chad, most are trapped in Sudan.
The Sudanese cannot return to their homes as it is not safe, and thousands more die each month from insufficient food, water, health care and shelter. Currently, the U.S. government acknowledges the actions in Sudan as genocide.
We commend the UW-Madison students of Action in Sudan for their efforts to raise awareness about this horrible genocide. Their work is a shining example of what students can do locally to affect the global environment.
It is through awareness and commitment to cause that we can make change happen and give our government a more global conscience. More than 100 people die in Darfur daily. With the support of groups such as Action in Sudan, we are one step closer to ending the violence.
Tonight, at 8 p.m. in Memorial Union's Tripp Commons, The Daily Cardinal and mtvU will be sponsoring a concert with proceeds going to benefit Action in Sudan.
We encourage all UW-Madison students to attend the concert. Not only to support their fellow students trying to make a difference, but to raise awareness to stop the genocide in Darfur.
