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New humanitarian crisis, what does the world do?
Well new humanitarian crisis is taking place in Sudan with Arab fighters burning down homes and forcing over a million people to possibly starve with estimates at 250,000 dead.
Here is a perfect opportunity. We are at the beginning of another country in which murders and crimes are taking over the country and killing thousands of people. Other than pledging money for food does the world try to solve the problem or let it continue?
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GENEVA (AFP) - A humanitarian crisis of enormous proportions is now inevitable in western Sudan's Darfur region and up to one million people could die if aid cannot be delivered there swiftly, international officials warned.
AFP/File Photo
"We estimate right now if we get relief in, we'll lose a third of a million people, and if we don't the death rates could be dramatically higher, approaching a million people," said US Agency for International Development (USAID) chief Andrew Natsios after a high-level UN aid meeting.
"That's just a prediction, we don't know for sure, we pray it's not true," he added.
More than one million African civilians have been forced to flee their homes because of an onslaught by government-backed Arab militia and Sudanese troops in the largely desert region over the past year, and atrocities are continuing, the United Nations (news - web sites) said.
Another 700,000 to 800,000 more people in Darfur are likely to run out of what they need to survive within months, the UN added as it increased its estimate of the number of victims.
Some 150,000 Sudanese refugees have fled across the border to Chad, 50,000 more than previously estimated.
The United States, European Union (news - web sites) and United Nations also warned Sudan that it must put a stop to atrocities by militia in the strife-torn region, and iron out "severe restrictions" which are still hampering aid deliveries.
"We admit we are late. Constraints have been so great, some agencies have been so slow, some donors have been so slow, the government restrictions have been so many," said UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland.
"And the Janjawid militia have been so harsh on the populations that we will have a humanitarian crisis of enormous proportions even in the best of circumstances," he warned.
Egeland said the United Nations faced a funding gap of about 236 million dollars for aid in the region until the end of the year.
But the United States pledged 188 million dollars at the meeting in Geneva and the European Union's Commission said it would come up with 10 million euros more on top of the 37 million euros it had already paid out for aid.
Officials were adamant that the pressure was firmly on Sudan's government, amid the "most violent, mean-spirited kind of human conduct imaginable" in Darfur, said World Food Programme (WFP) chief James Morris.
Representing the European Union, Ireland's Minister for Development, Tom Kitt, said: "We must also send a strong unequivocal message to the Sudanese government that it live up to its obligations to protect its citizens and in accordance with the ceasefire agreement, disarm the militia and give access".
Earlier, the advocacy group Human Rights Watch said the high level meeting would fail to tackle the root cause of the suffering in Darfur if they just agreed on aid deliveries.
"Humanitarian aid is urgent but it is not enough. A political solution is necessary: the Sudanese government's ethnic cleansing must not stand," HRW director Kenneth Roth said here.
At least 10,000 people have been killed in Darfur since rebels rose up in February 2003, prompting an assault by government forces and their militia allies.
The meeting in Geneva brought donors, Sudanese and Chad officials, Darfur rebel groups, the United Nations and aid agencies.
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