WASHINGTON, June 1 (UPI) -- Sixty-two Nobel Prize winners have signed letters to world leaders calling for the deployment of a U.N. peacekeeping to end the crisis in Sudan's Darfur region.
U.S. President George W. Bush, African and European heads of state and others were urged to take extraordinary measures under Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter, which empowers the world organization to take extraordinary measures to "restore international peace and security."
"In Darfur, humankind's center of suffering today, men, women and children are uprooted, starved, tortured, mutilated, humiliated, and massacred," said Professor Elie Wiesel, founder of a namesake humanitarian organization which organized the campaign.
Tens of thousands have been killed in Darfur in what Washington has called a genocide.
Wiesel said that by not offering to help refugees in the war-torn province, the Nobel laureates would be placed "on the wrong side."
The group commended the Darfur Peace Agreement signed May 5 in Abuja, Nigeria, as a critical step, but maintained that "much more needs to be done to create conditions for meaningful implementation of the accord."
The Nobel laureates called on President Bush to designate a "Presidential Envoy for Peace in Sudan" as a liaison between the Sudan government and Darfur rebel faction to ensure the accord is carried out in full.
They also urged international donors, particularly Gulf States, to provide additional humanitarian assistance, further urging the U.N. Security Council and International Criminal Court to hold those guilty of atrocities accountable.
Darfur rebels took up arms in 2003 in protest of what they saw as neglect from the Arab-dominated central government. Khartoum responded by backing militias which used ruthless tactics to combat the rebellion, killing 200,000 people and driving more than 2 million into refugee camps in Darfur and Chad.
