The US Congress has passed a resolution declaring that genocide is occurring in Sudan.
Backers of the resolution are hoping it will pressure the international community to take action to protect Africans in the Darfur region from marauding Arab militias.
In a rare show of bipartisan agreement, the House of Representatives passed the measure in a unanimous vote, and the Senate then approved it by a voice vote, in their last acts before Congress adjourned for a six-week summer recess.
"While the world debates, people die in Darfur," said Senator Sam Brownback, a Kansas Republican. "We actually could save some lives instead of lamenting afterward that we should have done something."
Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, a South Dakota Democrat, called the resolution "an important statement to make. The administration needs to hear it, the international community needs to hear it, and certainly the Sudanese government, which tolerates if not assists genocide, needs to hear it."
It urges President George W. Bush to seek a UN resolution to impose sanctions against those responsible for the atrocities, authorise a multinational force to protect displaced people and humanitarian workers, create a commission to investigate crimes and set up a process to resolve grievances between Darfurians and the Sudanese government.