Madam, - I welcome Declan Walsh's report in your edition of April 23rd on the tragedy in Sudan. While world leaders recently gathered to mark the tenth anniversary of Rwanda's genocide, another horror story has been unfolding in Darfur province, western Sudan, involving crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and gross human rights violations such as the use of rape as a weapon of war.
Our response to these war crimes is a test of all we said about not letting Rwanda's tragedy happen again.
The attacks on unarmed civilians - which are in themselves a breach of the laws of war - are just the start. There is a pattern of arbitrary executions, systematic rape of women and girls, and abductions. Thousands of people have died. More than a million have fled their homes, according to the UN.
Agencies such as Trócaire have been working to provide shelter and other basic needs for displaced people within Darfur, despite the many obstacles in reaching the area. We are also working with Sudanese refugees in Chad.
But we need the international community to wake up to what the UN described many weeks ago as the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
The militias on both sides must be disbanded and disarmed and the Khartoum government has to ensure the protection of civilians so that they can be allowed to return to their homes in safety.
A further crisis is looming because many people will miss next month's planting season. If they are not back in their villages when the rains come, an entire year's crops could be lost.
Sudan has already suffered war-induced famine during the past two decades of strife; we cannot pretend we don't know what will happen.
The irony is that this war has been taking place as peace talks continue to try to resolve the war in southern Sudan which has claimed so many other lives. The international community has helped to facilitate those talks; it must not now ignore the crisis in Darfur. - Yours, etc.,
NIALL TOIBIN, Head of the International Department, Trócaire, Maynooth, Co Kildare.