Darfur Humanitarian Update: August 31, 2010

Amidst a rapidly deteriorating security and political climate, and at the height of the rainy season and “hunger gap,” Darfur’s people face severe challenges to survival, both in camps and rural areas. Recent events at Kalma camp portend increased violence directed against Internally Displaced Persons throughout Darfur, and Khartoum’s new “peace from within” plan ominously recalls similar plans during the genocide in the Nuba Mountains (1992-99). The UN refuses to provide substantial data and reports on humanitarian conditions in Darfur, continuing a trend of over a year. For its part, the US is “de-emphasizing” the Darfur crisis and shifting its focus to the southern self-determination referendum.

Eric Reeves
August 31, 2010

Detailed analyses of humanitarian conditions in Darfur and eastern Chad from earlier this summer remain all too telling in their depiction of human suffering and deprivation:

http://www.sudanreeves.org/Article264.html (June 18, 2010)
http://www.sudanreeves.org/Article266.html (July 4, 2010)

Encouraging Khartoum: South Sudan Victimized by “Moral Equivalence”
The Sudan Tribune, December 21, 2010
http://www.sudantribune.com/Encouraging-Khartoum-South-Sudan,37360

By Eric Reeves

The Obama Administration “Decouples” Darfur
Khartoum is given free rein to obtain its “perfect ending” (“Misk al-Khitam”)

from The Sudan Tribune, November 12, 2010
(http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article36919 )

Eric Reeves

Humanitarian Conditions in Darfur: An Overview (Part 2)

Security for civilians and humanitarians in Darfur has entered freefall, clearly by design on the part of the National Congress Party regime in Khartoum. The kidnapping of humanitarian workers and the killing of UNAMID troops, especially in areas controlled by Khartoum and its militia allies, has created an unprecedented crisis, threatening aid operations throughout Darfur. With this as context, the present analysis focuses on information and data concerning humanitarian conditions in Darfur and eastern Chad, looking particularly at water, sanitation, and primary medical care. Part 1 addressed issues of humanitarian access, capacity, food security, and the deterrent effect of humanitarian presence in the midst of attacks on civilians. To gain even a partial overview of broader conditions on the ground is to see how precipitously and massively destructive withdrawal by humanitarian organizations and UNAMID would be.
(Part 1 of this analysis can be found at http://www.sudanreeves.org/Article264.html )

Eric Reeves
July 3, 2010

Humanitarian Conditions in Darfur: An Overview (Part 1)

As the rainy season begins in earnest and the hunger gap deepens, there are many alarming reports about food security and malnutrition. Yet severe restrictions of access for humanitarian workers and deliveries have yet again been imposed by Khartoum. Final withdrawal of the Justice and Equality Movement from the Doha “peace process” comes as rebel movements and Khartoum increase their military forces, auguring a major escalation in what has already been heavy fighting this year. Yet again, Darfur stares into the abyss.
(Part 2 of this analysis can be found at http://www.sudanreeves.org/Article266.html )

Eric Reeves
June 18, 2010

“What Khartoum Has Learned from Its Electoral ‘Triumph’”
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/atw.php?id=135

Eric Reeves
May 13, 2010

[Early assessments of the prospects for Sudan's elections and the southern self-determination referendum can be found at:

http://www.sudanreeves.org/Article246.html (June 28, 2009)
http://www.sudanreeves.org/Article248.html (August 26, 2009)]

Amidst the various comments and commentary arguing that war is over in Darfur, that there are only remnants of previous violence in the form of ” very low-intensity” conflict, several recent reports suggest that human security and humanitarian assistance are deeply imperiled. The gradual shift in international attention to the crises in Southern Sudan and Sudan’s national elections, while perhaps inevitable, has worked to obscure the immense dangers that continue to confront civilians throughout Darfur.

Eric Reeves
January 17, 2010