United Methodists remember victims in Sudan, advocate aid May 7, 2004 By Elliott Wright*  | Rev. Randy Day |
PITTSBURGH
(UMNS) — The United Methodist Church’s legislative assembly paused in
the course of a busy session to pray and pass a resolution expressing
concern for 5 million displaced people in Sudan. The
denomination’s General Conference pledged support for refugees who have
fled the east African country. The action came May 7, on the last day
of the quadrennial assembly. The
10-million-member denomination has no congregations in Sudan; however,
it participates in an interchurch effort to care for Sudanese refugees
entering the nation of Chad. “We abhor the use of violence of any kind,” delegates said in the resolution. “As
Christians, we must come to the defense of all victims of what is
beginning to look like genocide in the southern part of Sudan,” said the
Rev. R. Randy Day, top staff executive of the United Methodist Board of
Global Ministries. “We cannot be concerned just for our own.” The
United Nations reports that some 75,000 people have been displaced in
the last three weeks. There are 110,000 Sudanese refugees in the
neighboring nation of Chad. Estimates place the number of people killed
by violence and starvation at 2 million.
The United Methodist Committee on Relief has set up an emergency fund for Sudanese refugees in Chad. The
resolution singled out Day for challenging “the church and the world”
to respond to the clash, which is primarily between militant Islamic
militia backed by the government and animist, Christian and more
moderate Muslim groups in the Darfur region. The conflict is not
inter-religious; it results from a campaign to impose a militant Islamic
political outlook. The resolution was brought before the body by Jay Williams of the Western New
York Annual (regional) Conference and Brent Salsgiver of the Central Pennsylvania Annual Conference. The assembly directed the Board of Global Ministries to monitor developments in Sudan and report back to the 2008 session. Earlier
in the 10-day session, Day and Bishop Joseph Humper of Sierra Leone
issued separate calls for an international peacekeeping effort in Sudan,
which has undergone periodic outbreaks of violence in the last 20
years. Humper is chairperson of the Sierra Leone Truth and
Reconciliation Commission, which is leading that nation to stability
following a civil war. Not
one of the nearly 1,000 United Methodist delegates opposed the Sudan
resolution. Upon passage, Bishop Joseph Sprague of Chicago, who was in
the chair, led the conference is silent remembrance of the Sudanese
victims and in prayer for the end of the violence. *Wright is the information officer for the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries News media contact: (412) 325-6080 during General Conference, April 27-May 7. After May 10: (615) 742-5470.
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