PROVIDENCE — A bill to require the state pension fund to divest from Sudan cleared the state Senate yesterday.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Rhoda E. Perry, D-Providence, passed on a unanimous vote with support from Democrats and Republicans alike.

“We’ve all read, and we’ve all seen, what’s happening in Sudan, and it’s horrendous,” Senate Minority Leader Dennis L. Algiere, R-Westerly, said before the vote. “We can’t sit back and watch it happen.”

The bill was introduced at the request of former Sen. Frank T. Caprio, who is now the state general treasurer. It targets companies complicit in genocide in Sudan’s Darfur region. For nearly four years, government-backed militias have been targeting non-Arabs in the Darfur region, in the south of Sudan, killing, raping, and burning villages. The conflict has killed 400,000 people and displaced more than 2 million, according to a bill passed by Congress in September.

A list of companies prepared by the Sudan Divestment Task Force, based on the same criteria the legislation includes, would require Rhode Island’s $8-billion public-employee pension fund to sell $2 million in investments in three companies and reinvest that money elsewhere.

The House Finance Committee heard a companion bill last month, but has taken no vote.

Brown University and the City of Providence have approved divestment measures, as have many other universities and some cities and states.

egudrais@projo.com