Survivors of Sudan Human Rights Abuse Demand Justice

We Have a Dream - Parallel Human Rights Summit in New York City

www.ngosummit.org

New York - September 22, 2011 - As President Obama met with Salva Kiir, the president of the UN's newest member state, South Sudan, victims of the violent and genocidal policies perpetrated by the northern Sudanese regime reminded a packed audience at a human rights summit in New York City that the crimes they suffered must not be forgotten.

Addressing We Have a Dream: Global Summit Against Discrimination and Persecution, which has brought together dissidents, activists and survivors of human rights abuse from authoritarian regimes around the world, leading figures in South Sudan's human rights movement declared that true peace would not come to the region without a proper reckoning with the crimes of the past.

John Dau, one of Sudan's original "Lost Boys" -- the name given by aid workers to orphans expelled by the Sudanese army from their villages during the thirty-year civil war -- pointed to the ongoing attacks by Khartoum on South Sudan's border regions, despite the peace agreement.

"Where is the slogan 'Never Again' for South Sudan?" Dau demanded. "We need help. We do not want another generation of 'lost' boys and girls."

Luka Deng, a former cabinet minister in the Sudanese government who resigned following the brutal invasion of the Abyei border region by northern troops earlier this year, highlighted the feeble response of the United Nations in the face of ongoing war crimes.

"The UN knows of clear cases of crimes against humanity in South Sudan, yet it does nothing," Deng declared.

Adeeb Yousif, a survivor of the genocide perpetrated by Sudan in the western Darfur region, spoke of his harrowing experiences.

Yousif, who was arrested and tortured by the Sudanese government, told the summit: "I have witnessed mass killing, mass destruction and rape."

The We Have A Dream summit continues today at the W Hotel in New York City. All participants are available for interviews and comment, about both their own presentations and their reaction to the UN General Assembly's deliberations.

ENDS

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