The United States Agency for International Development issued a press release on 4/21/2004 in which they announced that they would be sending an additional 30,000 metric tons of emergency food assistance to the World Food Program (WFP) for conflict-affected populations in Darfur in western Sudan. The additional aid is valued at approximately $27.1 million and it is estimated to arrive in Darfur in late May in advance of the rainy season which will make distributing the aid more difficult. This contribution brings the total USAID contribution to the WFP for the Darfur crisis since October 2003 to nearly 74,000 metric tons of mixed food commodities worth approximately $67 million. In addition, USAID has also contributed approximately 7,000 metric tons of mixed commodities worth approximately $4.8 million for the WFP in eastern Chad.
The Northern Darfur region of Sudan is suffering from a war between the Government of Sudan and two rebel groups along with the effects of a drought and an infestation of grasshoppers that has destroyed some of Sudan's crops. According to an article by AllAfrica.com: Northern Darfur (home to 1.5 million people), which has been experiencing a drought over the last two decades, as well as desertification of its northern areas, is particularly vulnerable. After several years of drought, an expected "bumper harvest" in 2003 was all but ruined in November when grasshoppers descended on key millet-producing areas, according to Bashir Abd al-Rahman, an official with the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in al-Fashir, the capital of Northern Darfur State. Mass displacement has now added to the state's woes. Conflict in the north has resulted in an estimated 60 percent of villages there being destroyed, burned, or abandoned because of fear of attacks, according to a survey conducted by the Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG) in February and March 2004.
“The risk of genocide remains frighteningly real,” UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is quoted in an article published by the SundayHerald that describes the situation: “Hundreds and hundreds of villages have been destroyed, usually burned, with all property looted,” says HRW in a report titled Darfur In Flames: Atrocities In Western Sudan. “Key village assets have been destroyed in an apparent effort to render the villages uninhabitable.”
Kofi Annan’s UN humanitarian aid co-ordinator in the region, Mukesh Kapila, says: “This is more than just a conflict. It is an organised attempt [by Khartoum] to do away with a group of people. The only difference between Rwanda and Darfur now is the numbers of dead, murdered, tortured and raped involved.”
Date: Thursday, April 22, 2004 - 08:58 AM Printer Friendly  Email to a Friend 
|
