TV actress backs Sudanese appeal

Joanna Lumley says horrors in Sudan are developing

Absolutely Fabulous star Joanna Lumley has launched a major appeal in the UK to raise money to help the humanitarian crisis in Sudan.

Up to one million black Africans have been driven from their homes in Darfur by Arab militias, allegedly backed by the Sudanese government.

The Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) is organising the appeal on behalf of British aid charities.

Their last appeal, for Liberia, raised over £2.5m.

Ms Lumley is urging members of the public to give generously to the appeal.

"These horrors come round again. It is no use saying I gave some money five years ago and I gave quite a lot and I hope that will be the end of it or why hasn't Live Aid sorted this out", she told ITN News.

"These are developing horrors which happen round and around the world and I just think that as human beings we do have a responsibility."

Emergency aid

Chancellor Gordon Brown also told BBC Breakfast that short-term emergency aid and peacekeeping measures needed to be followed by long-term development.

News reports from Sudan were "absolutely shocking, it is devastating. To see children and mothers dying in front of our eyes is something no government and no decent-minded member of the public can tolerate," he said.

"Every effort... in what people in Sudan call the hungry season has got to be put in now to get the food to people."

Mr Brown refused to be drawn on whether Britain would be prepared to send peacekeepers, saying in the long-term they would have to come form within Africa.

But he did say the UK would be "supportive" if more troops needed to be deployed, while insisting that diplomacy was the best avenue at the moment.

A spokeswoman for the DEC said: "The scale of people's suffering in Sudan is immense and is getting worse.

"People have lost family members, been driven from their homes and lost everything they own.

"More Sudanese continue to leave their villages daily in search of safety within Darfur or across the border into Chad.

Disrupted access

"The UN estimates more than one million people are displaced. This figure does not include the larger number of people who have not been displaced but are affected by the war, an estimated two million people.

"General insecurity has restricted movement, resulting in disrupted access to land, markets and basic services, and loss of agricultural and other assets, such as livestock."

The Sudanese government is fighting two factions of rebels - the Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudan Liberation Army.

The DEC appeal is the organisation's 50th since it was established in 1963.

The money will got to pay for basics like water buckets, blankets and soap, will include emergency food aid and pay for shelter, clean water and sanitation.

The charities benefiting from the Sudan Emergency Appeal are the British Red Cross, Cafod, Care International UK, Christian Aid, Concern, Help the Aged, Merlin, Oxfam, Save the Children, Tearfund and World Vision.

To make a donation visit the DEC website at www.dec.org.uk, telephone [phone] or send a cheque/postal order made payable to: DEC Sudan Emergency, PO BOX 999, London EC3.