Darfur faces unprecedented food crisis, says ICRC

NEW YORK, Oct 20, 2004 (PANA) — In spite of efforts to resolve the current crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said Monday rural communities in the region were facing an ‘unprecedented’ food crisis.

The Red Cross in a report monitored here said the situation in the area was worse that even the African famines of the 1980s and 1990s.

Representatives of the Sudanese government and the two main rebel groups in the south of the country are expected to resume their peace talks in Abuja, Nigeria on Thursday.

A food-assessment survey in villages across Darfur in September found that most communities had planted, at best, only a third of the crops they needed.

Reports claim more than 50,000 people have died in the 18-month conflict between rebel groups and government-backed Janjaweed
militia.

More than a million others have been internally displaced, having
lost their homes and crops to arson.

The conflict in Darfur has caused a collapse in agriculture, the
ICRC noted, adding, “most villages have planted very little,
farmers have had their seeds, tools and cattle looted.”

“These are the people who did not flee to camps for displaced
persons – they tried to stay at home. Now they face famine.” the
Red Cross said.

The ICRC found these communities spending all their money on food
at the local market, where prices are now two to three times what
they were last year.

Those without money were resorting to collecting wild food,
exposing them to attack because, the Red Cross found, violence
was still continuing.

Red Cross delegates will continue to provide food assistance to
the villages and begin distributing seeds and tools for the next
planting season, the report states.