Catastrophe in Darfur, Eastern Chad Accelerates Amidst International Disarray

No progress on security, diplomatic, or political issues; international actors find no common ground in confronting Khartoum; eastern Chad slips further into chaos

Eric Reeves


The mismatch could hardly be greater between the massive security crisis in Darfur and eastern Chad on the one hand and the pusillanimous disarray on the part of the international community in responding. The clearest beneficiaries of this disarray are the génocidaires in Khartoum and their Janjaweed militia proxies; those who suffer most are those innocent civilians who now confront a fifth year of genocidal counter-insurgency warfare. And while the Darfur rebel groups and leaders certainly bear significant responsibility for current unsustainable levels of insecurity, here we must also recall how badly the people of Darfur have been served by the international community forcing through the ill-conceived “Darfur Peace Agreement” (May 2006). We must also see how relentlessly the Khartoum regime has sought to prevent the rebels from creating a common negotiating front, including several times deliberately bombing sites where the African Union has sought to engineer a cease-fire with the rebel groups. Khartoum also continues to imprison Suleiman Jamous, perhaps the most critical figure in creating rebel unity (see my analysis of Jamous’s key role, at http://www.sudanreeves.org/Article153.html). Khartoum is clearly intent on denying the rebels Jamous’s conciliatory skills.

A grim genocide by attrition settles ever more deeply over Darfur and eastern Chad, with almost a million human beings completely beyond humanitarian reach. Mortality in these regions is unknown but is certainly in the thousands per month. We do know that UN agencies now estimate that approximately 4.5 million people in the greater humanitarian theater are “conflict-affected” and in need of humanitarian relief. A huge percentage of these people are totally dependent on humanitarian assistance for food, water, and primary medical care. If the Crude Mortality Rate (CMR) for this population (deaths per day per 10,000 of population) has risen by even 0.7 above normal (0.6 for Darfur, according to UNICEF), then excess monthly mortality is in the range of 10,000 human beings---month in, month out. Read more >>>