The voices of roughly 70 members of Edmonton’s Congolese community rang out over Jasper Avenue as they marched towards the legislature at the noon hour last Friday, calling for peace in the Congo, and singing, “It’s a lie. If the rebels think Congo will fall, it’s a lie.”

The march and rally highlighted a letter the community sent to the federal government calling for Canadian intervention in the ongoing civil war.

“We have another genocide,” said participant Micheline Matara. “But no one is talking about it.”

On Nov. 8, the United Nation’s top official in the Congo, Alan Toss, called recent killing of civilians in the east war crimes.

According to the UN, more than a million people been displaced. Global relief agency International Rescue Committee says war and related displacement have killed 5.4 million people in the republic since 1988.