Stars come out for Sudan’s Darfur
By Jeremy Lovell
LONDON, Dec 8 (Reuters) – A galaxy of stars have sung to aid Sudan’s strife-torn Darfur region where thousand of people have been killed and nearly two million forced to flee in internecine fighting.
Governments have condemned the situation, which the United Nations has described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, and urged the Sudanese government to stop the killing.
“The situation in Darfur continues to deteriorate,” renowned soprano and long-standing U.N. goodwill ambassador Barbara Hendricks said on Wednesday. “This is a man-made disaster.”
Singers ranging from Simply Red’s Mick Hucknall to Pretender Chrissie Hynde, baritone Willard White, jazz legend Alison Moyet and disco diva Jocelyn Brown interpreted songs of Cole Porter.
The artists donated their services to help the people of Darfur, a region the size of France.
While some organisers feared charity fatigue, they need not have worried. Advance sales of tickets — priced at up to 90 pounds each — topped 2,600 and last minute demand filled London’s 5,000 seat Royal Albert Hall close to capacity.
At the same time Save the Children’s annual charity auction of models of Christmas trees in aid of Africa’s needy raised 250,000 pounds on Tuesday night — up 50,000 pounds from the previous year.
The World Health Organisation estimates 70,000 people have died since March from a combination of violence, disease and starvation, and the United Nations says 2.3 million people are in desperate need of food.
Jake Morland, field worker in Darfur for the U.N.’s High Commissioner for Refugees which organised Wednesday’s concert, said conditions were bad and getting worse.
“The situation is still horrific in Darfur and going from bad to worse in Chad. There are 1.8 million people all terrified in the camps. Terrified to go home,” he told the audience.
Morland, who returned from Darfur three weeks ago, said this month many of the people in the camps were farmers who needed an extended period of peace and security to return to the land to plant their crops.
If that did not happen then a severe food shortage could become catastrophic.