Chairman of Islamic World Council for Call and Relief

By Imam El-Leithy, IOL Correspondent

CAIRO, August 20 (IslamOnline.net) – The Islamic World Council for Call and Relief will send Islamic missions to the western Sudan's troubled region of Darfur to activate the role of Islam and intensify the Islamic charities' efforts in the region, said the council's secretary general.

"The Islamic World Council for Call and Relief is trying to activate the role of Islam in Darfur through sending religious guides to the tribes there that all embrace Islam and only need to remove misunderstandings represented in giving much care to tribal affiliations than religion, " Kamel El Sherif told IslamOnline.net.

Sherif considered Islam to be the only solution for overcoming the crisis in the war-torn area of Darfur .

"The crisis in Sudan and Darfur is part of the African culture represented in the long-standing wars among tribes, a matter which puts a heavy responsibility on us in the field of Islamic call as Islam is the only thread that links all tribes together," he said.

"All the Darfuris are Muslims, a matter which gives us a chance to reach a solution to the conflict via sending Islamic scholars to the region to raise the religious awareness there."

Poor Performance

Islamic relief aid arrive in Darfur

Sherif said a delegation from the Islamic council had visited Darfur this week to get acquainted with the volume of the needed relief aid for the Darfuris.

"Two meetings are scheduled to be held in Cairo on August 28 and in Sudan , attended by all Muslim charities, to activate the Islamic relief role in Darfur ," he said.

He attributed the poor performance of the Islamic relief organizations in Darfur to the obstacles set by some Arab government, following the 11/9 attacks.

Sherif stressed that the council is not against the role played by the international relief organizations but it is rather against exploiting such efforts to propagate policies that place more pressures on helpless people."

The council secretary general considers that part of the scheme set for foreign intervention in Sudan aims to control the role of the Arab and Islamic roles in the area and to give freedom to foreign charities which play suspicious roles in Darfur.

"In Darfur , I believe that part of the scheme set for foreign intervention in Sudan is through controlling the role of the Arab and Islamic charities."

"Some foreign parties exploit the issue of Darfur for missionary and commercial goals, a matter which requires the Arab governments to allow the relief institutions to help the Darfuris."

Suspicious Hands

Sherif said Israel has been playing a malicious role in Darfur and there have been reports on Israeli support to one of the rebel movements in the area.

He stressed that it was not strange to see Israel send relief aid to the area as part of its schemes in the region.

Israel ’s mass-circulation Maariv newspaper reported on its July 29 edition that the Jewish Agency had provided aid to the Sudanese refugees in Chad in coordination with US aid agencies operating in Chad .

Sudanese Foreign Minister Mostafa Othman Ismail accused Israel on August 8 of fueling tensions in the troubled Darfur region, calling for a greater Arab role to contain the crisis.

The United Nations has labeled the 16-month-old conflict as the world's worst current humanitarian crisis, amid mixed reports putting the number of people killed at 10,000 to 50,000 and over one million reportedly forced to flee their homes.