George Clooney on Sudan: 'It Gets in Your Bloodstream'

WORLD -- March 14, 2012 at 4:01 PM EDT

George Clooney on Sudan: 'It Gets in Your Bloodstream'

With violence putting people in the Nuba Mountains region of Sudan in peril, actor and human rights activist George Clooney said Wednesday in an interview with the NewsHour's Judy Woodruff that it was only right to bring attention to the area.

Clooney has visited Sudan multiple times over the years and met with the people there. "It gets in your bloodstream and you have a responsibility to them," he told Woodruff after testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Woodruff's interview with Clooney and John Prendergast, co-founder of advocacy group the Enough Project, airs Wednesday evening on the NewsHour.

Ethnic disputes in the Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile regions along the Sudan-South Sudan border are causing Sudanese to flee to refugee camps in South Sudan.

The fighting between Sudanese government forces and rebels is forcing thousands of people to seek shelter in the caves of the Nuba Mountains, where Clooney and Prendergast visited earlier this week.

When looking at news reports, "some people assume this is the 'cave people' of Nuba. They're not. They're hiding in those caves," Clooney said.

Prendergast said he and other activists want Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to be held accountable for his alleged war crimes and appear in front of the International Criminal Court.

More Coverage:

NewsHour special correspondent Tom Bearden reported in March 2011 on how the Satellite Sentinel project's images captured troop movements and evidence of destruction in villages along the border of Sudan and South Sudan:

We also examined what's behind the Sudan-South Sudan oil dispute.

View all of our World coverage and follow us on Twitter.

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