Genocide Survivors Urge EU to Stop Darfur Crisis

The European Union was condemned by genocide survivors yesterday, from the Nazi Holocaust to Rwanda, who called for EU sanctions to stop the Darfur conflict. They claimed that so far, the EU has done 'almost nothing' to stop mass killing in western Sudan.

"I didn't survive a Nazi concentration camp to sit back while genocide is repeated," said Holocaust survivor Martin Stern, one of 120 people to sign an open letter to EU states.

"Europe can play a leading role in stopping this slaughter but it has to act now," he added.

Six Western aid agencies including Oxfam, Care International and Christian Aid issued a joint statement urging a greater EU leadership role in the Darfur crisis.

Sudan has so far resisted international pressure to allow 20,000 UN troops to replace African Union peacekeepers in Darfur, where 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million displaced in a three-year-old conflict.

The badly equipped AU mission expires on December 31 but so far there is no agreement on what will happen after that date. Meanwhile, violence in Darfur is worsening with government troops and allied militias, as well as rebels, blamed for new attacks.

Aid workers say their access is severely limited by fighting, and some have warned the humanitarian situation could deteriorate to levels seen in 2003 and 2004 when UN officials called Darfur the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

Survivors from the Nazi Holocaust, Cambodia, Bosnia and Rwanda signed an open letter to EU states ahead of Friday's summit of leaders in the Finnish town of Lahti, urging EU sanctions on the Sudanese government.

"We write to urge you to act now to end the genocide in Darfur," it said. "Through the European Union you have the capacity to put real pressure on the Sudanese Government to stop the killing. But so far the EU has done next to nothing."

The letter called on the EU to implement a UN-authorised no-fly zone over Darfur and to apply concerted pressure on Sudan to stop killing civilians and accept a UN force.

It also called for targeted sanctions in the form of asset freezes and travel bans on those responsible for rights abuses and for Brussels to set a date for EU-wide trade sanctions if the Sudanese did not respond to the pressure.

EU foreign ministers on Tuesday urged Sudan to stop the growing violence but stopped short of a sanctions threat.

However, International Development Minister Hilary Benn said on a visit to Sudan on Monday the UN Security Council would soon have to look at other options if Sudan continued to refuse a UN mission.

An EU official said Prime Minister Tony Blair was expected to raise the Darfur issue at the summit on Friday.

"Politicians cannot continue to ignore the suffering of the people of Darfur," their statement said.

"If greater effort is not made to bring about a sustainable ceasefire to halt the violence and improve conditions on the ground, then the crisis... is going to become even worse."