Darfur crisis requires most humanitarian attention- Red Cross

By BRADLEY S. KLAPPER

GENEVA, June 17, 2005 (AP) — The conflict in Sudan’s western region of Darfur will require much more humanitarian attention than any other crisis in the world this year, the international Red Cross said Friday.

Aid workers from the ICRC and Sudanese Red Crescent distribute blankets to Sudanese refugees in Sudan’s Darfur. (ICRC).

Although fighting in Darfur has mostly subsided, civilians in the region are still suffering from a lack of law and order, widespread banditry and limited access to basic supplies, said Jacob Kellenberger, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

“The big problem now is not the intensity of the fighting,” Kellenberger said. “The human suffering caused by the conflict has been out of proportion.”

Darfur rebels now engaged with the Sudanese government in Nigeria-hosted peace talks began their uprising two years ago, complaining of what they saw as years of state neglect and discrimination against Sudanese of African origin. The government is accused of responding with a counterinsurgency campaign in which ethnic Arab militia known as Janjaweed committed wide-scale abuses against ethnic Africans.

Disease and hunger have multiplied the toll from fighting as thousands fled their homes to camps inside and outside Sudan. Aid workers now fear the war, which has kept farmers from their fields, will contribute to a food crisis, with drought also predicted this year.

In a statement from its Khartoum, Sudan offices Friday, the U.N. World Food Program said up to 3.5 million people _ or more than half Darfur’s population _ would need food aid between August and October. WFP, saying it had previously forecast a maximum of 2.8 million people in need, appealed for an additional US$94 million so that it could feed more of the hungry during that period, a traditional lean time.

“In May, WFP fed a record of 1.8 million people in Darfur _ most of them stranded in camps after being forced from their homes and farms,” Ramiro Lopes da Silva, WFP’s Sudan director, said in a statement. “But large numbers of others can no longer provide for themselves because of insecurity, drought, the poor harvest last year and with local markets closed. They don’t live in camps, but are all caught in the same Darfur trap, and urgently need our help to survive.”

The ICRC’s Kellenberger said the ICRC’s programs in Sudan _ the humanitarian organization’s most extensive in 2004 _ will need to be expanded this year to help provide relief, medical facilities and family communication to more than 300,000 civilians throughout Darfur.

“Darfur has been really a main challenge for the ICRC last year,” he said. “We really had to fight for access … and it was a major challenge in terms of networking.

“For this year, the operation in Sudan will stand out even more compared to other operations than it did last year.”

In the ICRC’s 392-page annual report released Friday, the humanitarian organization said it could now “work throughout most of Darfur.”

Until Kellenberger visited Sudanese officials in Khartoum in March 2004, the group had been restricted to three towns in Darfur and a few “humanitarian corridors.”

The ICRC “frequently urged the (Sudanese) authorities to step up measures in Darfur to protect civilians from attack and to improve the security situation so aid could reach conflict victims,” the report said.

The group also “remained deeply concerned about the serious violations of (international humanitarian law) in Darfur,” the report said.

Funding for the ICRC’s activities this year in Sudan will likely be three times the amount for its second largest planned operation, in Israel and the Palestinian territories, Kellenberger said.

Last year, the ICRC spent some 93 million Swiss francs (US$73 million; A?60 million) in Sudan, the bulk of which was used for emergency assistance in Darfur.