Clooney returns to Sudan with anti-war message

WENN, Wednesday, October 6, 2010, 2:02pm (PDT)

George Clooney has returned to Sudan in a bid to raise awareness about the possibility of a civil war there that could split the African nation in two.

The movie star and his journalist father Nick visited Darfur in 2008 and shot a film chronicling the atrocities of genocide there for unaware Americans, and now Clooney has returned to the nation in the hope of raising awareness of a coming storm of conflict.

The Southern Sudanese will vote for independence in January, and that's likely to split Africa's largest country in two and prompt a north-south war -- something Clooney and United Nations officials are keen to avoid.

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Speaking to TV news reporter Ann Curry, who is accompanying Clooney on his trip back to the Sudan, the actor says, "If you knew a tsunami, or [Hurricane] Katrina or a Haiti earthquake was coming, what would you do to save people?"

The movie star has reportedly spent the past week traveling to remote, conflict-prone areas of Sudan's south, including a mass grave and the ruins of the town of Abyei, which was largely burned to the ground during a conflict in 2008.

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