London: Church groups to join vigil at US Embassy for Standing Rock

The team from St Ethelburga's have announced that they will be supporting a vigil in London on Monday afternoon, 5th December, in solidarity with the Standing Rock water protectors in North Dakota, USA. The gathering has been initiated by Rev Peter Owen-Jones and friends. Members of Pax Christi together with the Columbans and several parish Justice & Peace groups will be joining the event outside the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square from 2-6pm.

The organisers stress that this is a peaceful gathering of support, not a demonstration. On this day, the US army has announced that it plans to evict the water protectors.

For many months now, thousands of members of more than 100 Native American tribes from across the continent, together with their supporters, have gathered at the reservation and are living in tents, in sub-zero temperatures in a effort to stop the construction of a huge oil pipeline desecrating their ancestral graves and threatening to pollute a huge stretch of the Missouri River which supplies water to 17 million people.

* Note: although the administration called for a halt to the drilling on Sunday, the oil company announced that it plans to continue the work on schedule.

For more information about Monday's event, visit: www.facebook.com/events/253895495026753/

Read earlier ICN reports about Standing Rock here: www.indcatholicnews.com/news.php?viewStory=31462