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Fur conference this week
BY ALEX IRVINE
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We all know that Maine is home to one of the larger concentrations of Somalis in the United States, but the Portland area is also becoming a magnet for the Fur, a tribe of Sudanese at the center of the war in that country’s region of Darfur. Hundreds of thousands of Fur have been either killed or displaced during recent years, victims of the Sudanese government and paramilitary death squads. About 70 Fur — the largest local group in the United States — currently call Portland home, and they’re putting together the First Annual Fur Unity Conference, which takes place this Saturday, February 26, at the Holiday Inn on Riverside Street in Portland. The public portion of the conference runs from 4 to 7 p.m., and includes a showing of a UN-made documentary film about genocide/ethnic cleansing in Darfur. Attendees are expected to include a number of politically active expatriate Sudanese, and local and state government officials are invited as well.
Sponsored by the Fur Cultural Revival, the conference will update the public on the situation in Darfur and brainstorm ways of ending the ongoing tragedy in western Sudan.
