Posted on 10/15/2004 9:43:28 PM PDT by Pikamax
Death Toll in Sudan's Darfur Reaches 70,000 - UN Fri Oct 15, 2004 02:02 PM ET
By Richard Waddington GENEVA (Reuters) - A total of 70,000 people are estimated to have died as a result of the conflict in Sudan's western Darfur region, with hundreds still dying every day, a top U.N. official said on Friday.
David Nabarro, head of the World Health Organization's (WHO) health crisis action group, gave the new overall figure, saying malnutrition and disease meant the monthly fatality rate was about 10,000. The previous total death toll had stood at 50,000.
People were dying in Darfur, where fighting has forced more than 1.5 million people from their homes since February last year, despite aid efforts and the world continued to underestimate the crisis, he said.
"There are 70,000 that have died as a result of the conditions in which they are living. The humanitarian environment is still unsatisfactory in Darfur," Nabarro told a news conference.
The monthly mortality rate in Darfur has been little changed from the summer and the WHO calculated the new death toll on that basis, he said.
Sudan's government said last week it would accept additional troops to monitor a shaky cease-fire in Darfur. The African Union (AU) said on Friday it would start deploying 4,000 more troops there this weekend.
Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria's president and AU chairman, said this would bring the troops total to 4,500 by end-November.
Nabarro said that although the United Nations calls Darfur the world's worst humanitarian crisis, the international community has still not grasped the size of the challenge of getting aid to people over an area the size of France.
Nabarro, who is coordinating WHO's Darfur response, said despite all the publicity surrounding the crisis, U.N. agencies had only received around half the $300 million in aid they had sought.
LACK OF MONEY
Because of lack of money, agencies had to distribute food and medicines in four-wheeled vehicles, which broke down, when they should be using helicopters.
They had three or four chartered planes when they needed a standing fleet of 10 or more.
"We have not managed to take on board the extraordinary challenges of the size of Darfur," he said.
International agencies began to get better access to the remote Darfur region in March and the death toll was arrived at according to data gathered since then.
It took no account of those who had died in violence, because there was no way of arriving at such a figure, he added.
Rebels launched a revolt in early 2003 after years of skirmishes between African farmers and Arab nomads over land.
They accuse the government of arming Arab militias, known as Janjaweed, to crush them and their civilian sympathizers, a charge Khartoum denies.
Peace talks between the government and rebels, which collapsed last month, are due to reconvene on Oct. 21.
In the meantime, fighting continues, albeit less intensely, despite a cease-fire that came into force in April.
Rebel leaders have warned that tens of thousands more civilians will die unless security improves.
The continuing violence forced the World Food Program, the U.N. agency supplying food to the camps in which many of the displaced people live, to call off operations in part of northern Darfur earlier this week.
Nabarro said that the WHO, which needs $1.5 million a month for its work, was using borrowed money and could not continue through December without more cash.
...nothing to see here, just your usual Christians fed to Muhammadan lions while the murky pif of vipers at the UN cooks up some popcorn and pops a hoebag...move along.
More CO² reduction. Forget Kyoto. The UN has it all under controol? What, me worry?
This is a prime example to underscore how pathetic and useless the United Nations really is.
For more information:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,118991,00.html
http://www.hrw.org/doc/?t=africa&c=sudan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Commission_on_Human_Rights
Doesn't it seem that the UN is most comfortable when acting in the role of counting deaths, rather than the role of preventing them or avenging them...
And blaming it on "humanitarian conditions" rather than genocide.
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