Overland Park ? The events of Sept. 11 were horrible.

But the head of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement asked Kansans to realize what’s happening in his country is even worse.

“There is no greater tragedy on earth than the tragedy that is Sudan,” said John Garang, whose Christian and animist rebels have been locked in a civil war with the nation’s Khartoum-based, Muslim fundamentalist government since 1983.

The conflict has claimed more than 2 million lives, most by war-induced starvation, and displaced more that 4.5 million people.

“When the sad events of Sept. 11 took place, we in Sudan wept with America because we understand,” Garang said, meeting with reporters Thursday at the Doubletree Hotel in Overland Park. “A jihad has been declared on us, too.”

At the invitation of the Bush administration, the 56-year-old Garang is visiting the United States for the first time in three years. He met with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell last week and on Wednesday spoke at the Carter Center in Atlanta.

Garang addressed supporters Thursday evening at the Marriott hotel in Overland Park. About 750 Sudanese refugees live in and around Kansas City.

Paul Korsuk is one of them. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever go back to Sudan.

“It is hard to say,” Korsuk said, seated in the Doubletree’s lobby after Garang’s afternoon news conference. “There is not much for me to go back to. My age group is not there. By design, they have been killed by the regime.

“And by design, they have killed the educated,” he said, struggling to express his fears in English. “I am educated.”

Korsuk, 42, has a bachelor’s degree in education and a doctorate in geography.

He is chairman of a group he calls Greater Sudanese Community of Kansas City.

Bobbie-Frances McDonald, Lawrence, has been trying to raise American awareness of circumstances in Sudan since she visited the country in July 1999. She welcomed Garang’s visit to the heartland.

“I hope his visit raises public awareness,” McDonald said. “After I was there in July 1999, I promised the people there I would never forget them and do everything I could to raise public awareness.”