Raising awareness

Raising awareness

Students, activists and elected officials marched through Downtown this afternoon to raise awareness of the human rights violations taking place in Darfur and South Sudan.

The march is the first of several events this month organized by the Pittsburgh Darfur Emergency Coalition to take advantage of the arrival of world leaders and international media in Pittsburgh for the upcoming G-20 Summit on Sept. 24 and 25.

The marchers, lead by a group of West African drummers, held signs bearing the names of destroyed villages as they walked from the City-County Building to Mellon Park.

The Pittsburgh Darfur Emergency Coalition wants the G-20 nations to influence policy in Sudan by making debt cancellation and relief measures dependent on improving the conditions in Darfur and South Sudan. The coalition also wants the international community to do a better job of enforcement existing sanctions, and wants state and local governments to divest their funds of companies with economic ties to Sudan.

(See full story in the Sept. 17 Chronicle. Eric Lidji can be reached at ericl@thejewishchronicle.net.)

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