By Dan Morrison Sat Feb 4, 4:25 PM ET
KHARTOUM, SUDAN--Until a couple of weeks ago, the town of Mershing was something of an oasis amid South Darfur's nightmare landscape of village burning, looting, rape, and widespread killing. Its population had swollen to 55,000--with some 20,000 local inhabitants outnumbered by 35,000 internal refugees who had escaped the fighting elsewhere with little more than their lives.
Now, Mershing is described as a ghost town. Its homes and eight large refugee camps emptied in a panic as residents and aid workers fled the government-backed Janjaweed militiamen on horseback and camels who attacked and looted--retaliation against civilians for a rebel assault two weeks earlier that killed six government police officers. Mershing's residents got no protection from local police or from African Union peacekeepers about 40 miles away, according to aid workers and U.N. officials. Some have taken refuge in other towns, but many are living in the open rocky scrublands, with little food or water, no security, and their fates unknown.
Against the backdrop of fighting, serial murder, and rape throughout Sudan's Darfur region, the
U.N. Security Council, chaired this month by the United States, is moving toward a decision to take over and substantially expand what is now an inadequate African Union peacekeeping force. U.N. Secretary General
Kofi Annan, in a Washington Post column, said such action "is needed, and soon. "And the Bush administration has signaled its support. Still, it could take as long as a year to compose such a force, assuming that Washington can persuade China--which buys about 5 percent of its oil from Sudan--to go along on the Security Council.
While the world has taken intermittent notice, the crisis is unrelenting. More than 180,000 people have been killed by Khartoum's proxy Arab militias, and more than 2 million civilians--mostly black, Muslim farmers--have been pushed from their villages and land into camps where they live at the opposing mercies of aid workers and gunmen. More than two years of diplomatic efforts--plus an African Union peacekeeping force of 7,000 for an area the size of France--was supposed to have provided an interim cease-fire, but that has been elusive.
The situation is growing both more dire and more difficult with each passing month. There is the prospect of starvation, as the food-aid pipeline runs short of supplies. And the violence is becoming more complex. The Sudan Liberation Army rebels, whose uprising in February 2003 sparked Khartoum's scorched-earth retaliation, have splintered into numerous competing factions, with each commander looking for Land Cruisers to steal, targets to hit, and ground to occupy. Rebels are also blocking traditional grazing routes in south Darfur, bringing deadly retaliation from the militias, officials say. Interventions by such disparate eminences as U.S. Deputy Secretary of State
Robert Zoellick and Libyan supremo Muammar Qadhafi have failed to unify the rebels either on the battlefield or at the negotiating table.
Aid imperiled. Bandits, rebels, and Arab militias regularly attack food and aid convoys. They also fight one another. Neighboring Chad, a cosponsor of peace talks being held in Nigeria, has since entered its own proxy war with Sudan. The latest stage of fighting puts at risk the delivery of food, water, sanitation, and medical attention to more than 3 million people, half the population of Darfur. Food deliveries to relief camps continue apace, but distribution to villagers--who account for half of the
United Nations' food aid needs in Darfur--grows more perilous each day.
Diplomats talk up the prospect for a peace deal by the end of March that will call for the disarming of rebels and militias and the safe return home for displaced people. It is unclear, though, what influence that would have on the ground, particularly when someone else--think Chad and Libya--keeps the factions supplied with guns and cash. To enforce a future peace deal, diplomats are counting on a bigger, stronger, and better-funded U.N. peacekeeping force.
By then, though, it may be too late. The World Food Program needed $300 million by January 31 to maintain food supplies to the region. The United States is providing $100 million, guaranteeing food into March. After that, says WFP emergency coordinator Carlos Veloso, "the pipeline is dry." Between 2.5 million and 2.8 million people could face starvation, and aid workers say it will be too late if governments don't help before the pictures of starving children start showing up on TV. "The donor countries will wake up to the news in four or five months and write a big check," Veloso says, "but the deaths will have happened."
Darfur oasis deserted! African Union can't control Darfur genocide :(
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Originally Posted by {nF}remix
