Sydney, April 20 (People's Daily Online Australia) -- Sydney's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community leaders are inviting everyone to attend the eighth annual Anzac Day March and Commemorative Service in Redfern to honour Australia's unsung war heroes.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have served in the military since the Boer War to the present.

Pastor Ray Minniecon, co-founder of the Coloured Diggers group and an organiser of the march, said Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander troops were treated as equals by their mates on the battlefield, but experienced prejudice and discrimination when they returned home.

"In the past when they returned from war, they had to march at the end of the lines in the Anzac Day ceremony. What I'd like to see here in Sydney, one year, is our Diggers leading the main march in the city," Pastor Minniecon said.

"It would be a huge honour for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Diggers of NSW to do that, and it might also draw out some of those Diggers who, for personal reasons, have chosen not to be a part of the Anzac Day commemorations in the past."

Lord Mayor Clover Moore said the City of Sydney was proud to support the march for the next three years with a $5,000 a year grant and in-kind support.

"It's important we acknowledge that even before Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were being recognised as citizens, before they were even being counted on the Census roll, they were putting their lives at risk to defend this country," the Lord Mayor said.