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Over 180,000 Darfur deaths in 18 months -- UN Envoy
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-03-15 14:39
The U.N. emergency relief coordinator, Jan Egeland, estimates that more than
180,000 people have died in Sudan's Darfur from hunger and disease over the past
18 months, his spokesman said on Monday.
The deaths do not include people killed during ongoing violence in Sudan's
arid western region, said spokesman Brian Grogan.
Last week Egeland said that earlier estimates of 70,000 dead from last March
to late summer were too low, telling a news conference: "Is it three times that?
Is it five times that? I don't know but it is several times the number of the
70,000 that have died altogether."
Egeland now estimates that an average of 10,000 people have died each month
over the past year and a half from malnutrition and disease, Grogan said.
Conflict has raged in Darfur for more than two years with rebel groups
fighting the government for power and resources. In response, the government has
armed some militia. The most brutal one, known as the Janjaweed, has carried out
a scorched earth campaign, killing, raping and driving 2 million people from
their homes.
The U.N. Security Council this week expects to adopt a resolution that would
authorize a 10,000-member peacekeeping force in southern Sudan to monitor a
landmark accord that ended 21 years of civil war.
Council members also are at odds over where to try cases of gross human
rights violations. The United States is opposed to the International Criminal
Court in The Hague and instead has proposed a new tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania.
No other council member supports that proposal.
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