October 26, 2006 | Read Time: 1 minute
MySpace, the Los Angeles company that runs the social-networking Web site, is spearheading a campaign to raise awareness about the humanitarian crisis in Darfur and money for relief efforts.
Rock for Darfur will feature more than 20 concerts in cities across the country on October 21. Participating bands will donate a portion of ticket proceeds to Oxfam America for its work in the war-torn region of Sudan.
For more than three years, fighting in Darfur between government-backed militias and rebel groups has killed at least 200,000 and forced more than two million people to flee their villages. Hundreds of thousands of people are living in camps for the displaced in Darfur and refugee camps in neighboring Chad, and 3.4 million people depend on international aid.
Conditions are increasingly dire for civilians — and dangerous for organizations providing aid, says Raymond C. Offenheiser, president of Oxfam America, in Boston. He says that it is no longer safe to drive from one camp to another, and humanitarian groups have to rely on United Nations helicopters to move between camps.
Since May, 12 relief workers have been killed in Darfur. The violence has caused aid organizations to scale back their activities or leave the country altogether.
“We’re worried now that with the increasing insecurity there’s a high percentage of people who we can’t get to — it may run as high as 40 percent,” says Mr. Offenheiser.
The Rock for Darfur Web site provides information on how to organize a gathering to educate people about the crisis, as well as a link to Oxfam’s online donation page, video from the actor George Clooney’s recent trip to the region, and an excerpt from a forthcoming documentary about the crisis, The Devil Came on Horseback.
To get there: Go to http://www.myspace.com/rockfordarfur.
