"That of Darfur is a local conflict but it is a threat for the whole African continent. The international community can no longer postpone taking effective actions": the South-African archbishop Desmond Tutu, an anti-apartheid campaigner who received the Peace Nobel Prize in 1984 spoke today at the European Parliament in Brussels at a conference about the state of affairs in the Sudanese region. Along with Tutu, invited by the conference of the presidents of the EU Assembly, there was Jody Williams, winner of the Nobel Prize in 1997 for the international campaign against mines she had devised. "The situation in Darfur explained the archbishop is extremely painful, with terrible suffering, victims, abused women, people starving to death in rising numbers. The crops are destroyed, the number of refugees is rising". The speaker asked to "increase diplomatic and humanitarian measures by the UN and the EU", to "proceed to targeted sanctions to Sudan, to supply a peacekeeping team with adequate resources" to respond to the seriousness of the problem". "Europe and the United Nations added Desmond Tutu should do like the Good Samaritan who took care of someone even if he was a stranger if not an enemy". (continued)
