Actress Diana Rigg made a moving appeal for peace when she read a teenage Rwandan girl's poetry to a packed audience.

Dame Diana, the new Oxford Professor of Contemporary Theatre, spoke at the Town Hall last night as part of the city's International Women's Festival. She said she wanted to lend a voice to a cause which affected women across the world.

"If I can do that by reading poems such as the heartbreaking plea written by 14 year old Hadija from Rwanda whose mother was shot in front of her, that's what I will do," she said.

Dame Diana said she began to protest more than 20 years ago when she joined the Irish women's march for peace. "I guess I'll always be doing something like this - for it seems there's not a single place on the face of this globe where there's not an instance of war of some kind or another.

"I suppose historically this has always been so. But today, because of television and modern communication systems we are constantly bombarded, with scenes of famine, rape and plunder. Endless suffering, maimed and starving children, they are always with us," she said.

Of the poem by Hadija, now at school in Oxford, Dame Diana said: "The horror of a child's life so blighted is a shocking testament to our world today. We have just got to work towards ending this barbaric cruelty." * An extract from Hadija's poem:

Soldiers attacked our home,

We were robbed to the last shilling.

Mother, my only mother, was shot straight in the heart

She looked at me with sad eyes and signs

It's so painful daughter, I'm dying daughter,

Struggle your way out.

Story date: Tuesday 09 March

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