330 East Roosevelt Road, Suite G5, Lombard, IL 60148 - Ph.: 630.629.7490 – Fax: 630.629.7492
Contact:Jihad Shoshara, M.D., Chair, Darfur Awareness & Relief Program [jshoshara@yahoo.com, Ph. 847.452.5515]

PRESS RELEASE
Chicago - Friday, July 16, 2004

CHICAGOLAND MUSLIMS ADDRESS HUMAN TRAGEDY IN DARFUR, SUDAN
COUNCIL ESTABLISHES RELIEF FUND FOR SUFFERING REFUGEES

The Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago (CIOGC), an umbrella organization serving over 400,000 Muslims throughout Chicagoland, has initiated an Awareness/Relief program to (1) inform Americans – Muslims and those of other faiths – about the suffering of hundreds of thousands of Sudanese refugees escaping persecution in the Darfur region of Western Sudan, and (2) raise funds for their assistance. An apparent ethnic cleansing campaign there has uprooted over an estimated one million people from their homes; these refugees are now barely surviving in makeshift camps, with little access to food or medical care.  Their plight is certain to become more desperate as the onset of the rainy season makes local roads impassable and obstructs incoming relief supplies.  The United Nations has called the situation in Darfur “the world’s greatest humanitarian crisis,” and has estimated that up to 300,000 may perish if nothing is done.

Expressing deep concern about this crisis, Council Chairman Kareem Irfan stated: “The CIOGC and Chicago Muslims are distressed at the unfolding human tragedy in Darfur and the severe plight of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, including women and children, who have been assaulted, lost their homes and property, and brutally thrown out of their villages as part of a pogrom apparently targeting ethnic, non-Arab Sudanese. It is an urgent moral imperative of the U.S. and the international community to work with the Sudanese authorities to halt this human tragedy, guarantee the security and fundamental human rights of all Sudanese, and cover the immediate needs of displaced refugees.” 

The Council has established a special Darfur Relief Fund* for pooling tax-deductible, charitable donations in support of these refugees. Mosques and Islamic centers across Chicago will focus on the situation in Darfur and its victims during Friday sermons and other congregational events, and raise charitable funds for this cause.  We urge Muslims and fellow Americans of all faiths to spread awareness of the desperate situation in Darfur, contact their elected representatives in Congress to condemn the violence in Sudan, and press for urgent humanitarian intervention by the U.S. and the global community.

[* Tax-deductible donation checks payable to “CIOGC” and designated for “Darfur Relief Fund” in the check memo may be sent to CIOGC, 330 E. Roosevelt Road, Suite G5, Lombard, IL  60148.  Secure On-Line donations may also be made conveniently at our website: www.CIOGC.org]

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