Region | Sudan
Bush calls for increased effort to help Darfur
After seeing graphic reminders of the Rwandan genocide, US President George W. Bush called yesterday for increased international efforts to help Darfur.
- Reuters
- Published: 00:53 February 20, 2008
Kigali: After seeing graphic reminders of the Rwandan genocide, US President George W. Bush called yesterday for increased international efforts to help Darfur.
Bush visited a memorial to the 1994 genocide when 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were murdered by Hutu extremists.
At a museum where the remains of some 250,000 victims are buried, he viewed pictures of children who were killed and laid a wreath at a memorial.
"One of the lessons of the genocide in Rwanda was to take some of the early warning signs seriously," Bush said at a news conference with Rwanda's President Paul Kagame on the third stop of his five-nation African tour.
Bush called attention to the conflict in Darfur, which he has labelled genocide, and criticised the United Nations for moving too slowly to send more peacekeepers. He said it "seems very bureaucratic to me, particularly with people suffering".
Bush also announced the United States was making available $100 million (about Dh365 million) to help train and equip peacekeepers for Darfur, including $12 million to Rwanda.
He said he still believed he made the right decision not to unilaterally deploy US forces to Darfur but that meant having to deal with a slow UN response.
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