Leading rabbis have called on politicians from all parties to help end the violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

In a letter to the Times, senior figures from the Reform, Liberal and Masorti movements said the Congolese people had experienced “murder, rape, looting, mass-displacement and the violence associated with the illegal mining of ‘blood minerals’” on a daily basis.

More than six million people in the central African country had already lost their lives, they wrote.

“As rabbis, many of whom have relatives who perished in the Holocaust, we can neither stand idly by nor close our hearts to the pleas of the Congolese people,” the letter stated.

They urged all political parties “to make peace and stability in the DRC a priority for the next government”.

More than70 people signed the letter, including Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner, senior Reform movement rabbi; Rabbi Danny Rich, Liberal Judaism chief executive; and Masorti Judaism’s senior rabbi, Jonathan Wittenberg.

The letter was also signed by Baroness Neuberger and Rabbis David Mitchell and Colin Eimer who are patrons of the Save the Congo campaign group.