UN raises toll to 1.2 million homeless in Darfur

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 18 (Reuters) – The toll of homeless in Sudan’s Darfur region, where marauding Arab militiamen are driving African villagers off their land in the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, has risen to 1.2 million, the United Nations said on Wednesday.

“The U.N. estimates there are now 1.2 million displaced, up from 1 million reported last month,” U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said.

The U.N. Security Council has given Sudan until the end of August to prove it has made progress in improving the security situation in Darfur or face unspecified sanctions. Fighting erupted in the area a year ago over accusations the government was oppressing African villagers and favoring Arabs.

The United Nations says that up to 50,000 people have died in Darfur as a result of a conflict, either violently or from deprivation.

U.N. and Sudanese government officials plan to meet on Thursday evening in the capital Khartoum for a progress report on how the government is doing, Eckhard said.

Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail also plans to detail further actions to be taken to meet those commitments, which include disarming and prosecuting the Arab militia, the U.N. spokesman said.

U.N. special envoy Jan Pronk is due to tour Darfur with Sudanese officials Aug. 26-29 to see whether Khartoum is fulfilling its obligations.

He is then expected to present his findings in New York around Aug. 30. But the U.N. Security Council will get an interim report next Tuesday.

In the meantime, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, in its latest report on the humanitarian situation in the region, estimates that about 1.48 million people have been affected by the conflict, Eckhard said.

As the rainy season reaches its peak, the World Food Program is urgently scaling up its air operations into the region, focusing on Geneina, the capital of West Darfur, the state most affected by the rains, Eckhard said.

The U.N. aid agency, which has been distributing food by road, plane and train, had previously said it would have to do air drops when the rains were at their peak.