Justin Trudeau and Senator Romeo Dallaire led a Toronto rally Sunday as part of Global Day for Darfur.

Other events are taking place across Canada and in 32 countries around the world.

People taking part in the protests are demanding foreign intervention into the civil war in the Darfur region of western Sudan in northeast Africa -- a clash the U.S. has described as "genocide."

Dallaire was the keynote speaker at the event which took place at Ramsden Park, on Yonge Street near the Rosedale subway station.

He said the Sudanese government is slaughtering its own people.

"They have a bellicose attitude as a government towards the rest of the world, and in so doing ... they are mutilating, raping, killing and abusing 2.5 million human beings."

Tragi Mustafa, a refugee from Darfur and the founder of Save Women - Sudan, also spoke during the rally.

Justin Trudeau, son of former prime minister Pierre Trudeau and chair of Canada's youth service program Katimavik, will MC. He encouraged participants to wear blue hats to the rally, in support of ending the civil war in Darfur.

Trudeau said the world has a responsibility to get involved in the crisis.

"When bad things start to happen in a country that is either unable to prevent those bad things from happening, or worse, is actively promoting those bad things, it is the responsibility of the world to step in," trudeau said.

Dallaire is uniquely qualified to co-lead the Toronto rally. He was in charge of the United Nations troops stationed in Rwanda during the 1994 Tutsi genocide, and has received the Meritorious Service Award for his efforts.

Since his time in Rwanda, Dallaire has written a book about the experience called Shake Hands With the Devil - The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda, and has spoken extensively about his frustrating struggle to stop the genocide while he was there.

He was appointed to the senate in March, 2005 and immediately joined then-prime minister Paul Martin's special advisory team on Sudan, and was recently appointed by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to the Genocide Prevention Advisory Committee.

African Union peacekeepers are scheduled to leave Darfur by the end of the month, but Sudan says it will not allow UN troops to replace them or stop the war between the rebel militia and the government.