Rally decries Darfur killings

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Religious organizations, political groups and foreign nationals led thousands of people in a rally yesterday on the Mall to urge U.S. leaders to help end the widespread killings in Sudan's Darfur region.

The rally brought together an unusual coalition of about 160 Catholic, evangelical, Muslim and Jewish organizations and Democratic and Republican lawmakers to help stop what many have called "a genocide."

"This issue crosses every religion, every race, every age," said Rinat Manhoff, 28, who came with about 200 people from Temple Micah in Northwest. "And now there is no excuse for the world not to do something about it."

Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, Catholic archbishop of Washington, was among the key religious leaders who participated in the rally.

"It's time now to say, 'No more,' " he said. "We've been awakened to how these people suffer. We in Washington understand that we are all people, that we are all brothers and sisters. We can make a difference."

The years of fighting between ethnic groups and Arab militias in western Sudan have killed at least 180,000 people and have left about 2 million homeless. The U.N. World Food Program said Friday that it was cutting rations there in half because of a lack of money.

Organizers estimated that about 75,000 people attended the event on the Mall, including 240 buses of activists from 41 states.

Organizers of the event, sponsored by the Save Darfur Coalition, had a permit for 10,000 to 15,000 people, said Sgt. Scott Fear of the U.S. Park Police. The agency does not give official crowd estimates.

The rally was just one of 18 over the weekend in several U.S. cities and coincided with a U.N. deadline for Darfur's warring parties to reach a peace deal to end the three-year conflict.

The deadline for peace talks was extended yesterday, after rebels rejected a proposed deal to halt the fighting.