Darfur needs our immediate attention

Written by DO

200,000 people dead since the conflict began in 2003, including those killed by starvation and disease, according to the most conservative estimates.

Two million displaced people are either living in camps or have sought refuge in neighbouring Chad, after fleeing the fighting. This sobering inventory of human waste and misery is taking place in the Sudanese province of Darfur. It is the sort of unfolding tragedy that naturally attracts the attention of humanitarian NGOs, but even there, one humanitarian worker has summarised the situation thus: ‘The greatest immediate threat to the people on the ground is the deteriorating humanitarian space in Darfur.

It is a deterioration made possible by the international community’s lack of political will to end the conflict. So while women were being raped, people tortured and murdered, the international community was busy quibbling over the definition of genocide. Read more >>>