Divorce rates soar in Darfur due to conflict-paper

January 9, 2008 KHARTOUM) — Divorce rates have rocketed in Sudan’s Darfur region, where the festering conflict has taken a toll on family life, media reported on Wednesday.

Independent daily newspaper Al-Ahdath reported that courts in south Darfur state ruled on 2,018 divorce cases during the first nine month of 2007. It gave no earlier figures but said there had been a significant rise on previous years.

Researcher Salwa Muhammad Zariba attributed the increase in divorce cases to “the ramification of the conflict in Darfur and its effects on the important pillars of the family”, the paper quoted her as saying.

The worst statistics came from south Darfur’s capital Nyala, the newspaper said. The town has seen increasing unrest in recent months and is surrounded by a string of troubled camps for families displaced by the conflict.

The nearby Kalma camp, home to about 90,000 people who fled their homes during four-and-a-half years of rape, looting and killing in Darfur, has been the scene of repeated tribal clashes and armed raids.

(Reuters)