US rally on Sudan crisis led by former NBA star

Mar 23, 2006 (PHILADELPHIA) — Former NBA star Manute Bol and others rallied near Independence Hall on Thursday to push for intervention in the humanitarian crisis in Sudan’s Darfur region.

The rally was part of a 300-mile (483 kilometers) trek being made by a former Sudanese slave, Simon Deng, who is marching from United Nations headquarters in New York to Washington, D.C., in an attempt to bring attention to the violence in Darfur.

Bol, a 7-foot-7 (2.31 meters) native of Sudan who played for several NBA teams including the Philadelphia 76ers, said his homeland needs more assistance than just food and money. The people there need protection from the ongoing violence and help from the United States and United Nations, he said.

“You cannot send food to Darfur without protection,” Bol said. “Those people are in trouble.”

The United Nations has described Darfur as the world’s gravest humanitarian crisis. Along with the thousands of dead, more than 2 million people have been displaced by the fighting between ethnic African tribes and the Arab-dominated government and militias it supports.

Other speakers at the rally, which was attended by about 100 people, compared the crisis to past ones in Bosnia and Rwanda and said the world needs to pay attention.

“Most of the fellow Sudanese, they don’t want to talk about it,” Deng told the crowd. “I am standing here for the simple reason (that) I need a solution.”

(AP/ST)