Recalls Lessons of the Past in Statement Urging International Response

(July 18, 2004 - Jerusalem) Yad Vashem has been following reports from Darfur, Sudan with growing concern and urges the world to act before it is too late. The aggregate of news reports about the situation in Darfur indicates that the escalating humanitarian crisis includes aspects of ethnic cleansing and perhaps even genocide. During the era of the Holocaust the world was slow to respond to news about the murder of six million Jews. In the 1990s, unrestrained genocide occurred in Rwanda with little or no international acknowledgement of it until after it had ended. It is imperative that we learn the lesson from past failures to respond in time to evolving, genocidal evil. Yad Vashem urges the leaders of the nations of the world to take immediate concerted action to halt the tragedy in Darfur before it devolves further, to provide effective humanitarian aid to the region and to punish the perpetrators of the heinous crimes that are being committed there.