The UN health agency said on Friday that the death toll in refugee camps in the Darfur region of Sudan had reached 70,000, and that people would continue dying at the rate of 10,000 a month as long as the international community did not provide more money.
David Nabarro, director of the crisis action group of the Geneva-based World Health Organization, said despite the international attention Darfur had attracted, the UN was not receiving the money it needed to curb deaths caused by malnutrition and disease.
"Every day in newspapers in the US, Europe and Japan, there is coverage of the suffering in Darfur, yet we don't have a significant enough popular perception around the world of the enormity of that suffering, and the United Nations cannot get the funding for this priority program," Nabarro said in a telephone interview.
The UN has received only half of the US$300 million it needs, he said, while with full financing it could reduce the mortality rate by half.
At UN headquarters, the US was discussing moving Security Council meetings on Sudan to Nairobi next month, when it will hold the rotating presidency of the council. American diplomats said the purpose would be to speed the conclusion of talks in Kenya aimed at ending a decades-long civil war in the south of Sudan.
The American ambassador, John Danforth, was President George w. Bush's special envoy to those talks, and the UN believes that getting a peace agreement put into effect in the south would help resolve the conflict in Darfur, in western Sudan.
Several Security Council ambassadors said Danforth had discussed the suggestion with them and was receiving support for it. Asked about the proposal, Richard Gre-nell, Danforth's spokesman, would say only that "during the month of November, while we hold the presidency, we are exploring ways to highlight the Sudan issue."
The conflict in Darfur has forced 1.4 million villagers from their homes into displacement camps, and 200,000 of them have fled across the border to Chad.
The US has said the government-supported killings and mass evictions constitute genocide, and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has created an international commission to compile a report in three months on whether genocide has occurred.
Nabarro said that because of a lack of money, relief workers in Darfur were unable to distribute aid in helicopters and had to rely on trucks, which broke down. He said the agency needed 10 charter aircraft but could only afford four. The agency has been borrowing money to meet its needs of US$1.5 million a month, he said, but could not continue doing so past mid-December.
"We are running on a threadbare, hand-to-mouth existence, and if the plight of these people in Darfur is as important to the international community as it seems to be, then we would have expected more long-term support," he said.
South Korea’s air force yesterday apologized for a 2021 midair collision involving two fighter jets, a day after auditors said the pilots were taking selfies and filming during the flight and held them responsible for the accident. “We sincerely apologize to the public for the concern caused by the accident that occurred in 2021,” an air force spokesman told a news conference, adding that one of the pilots involved had been suspended from flying duties, received severe disciplinary action and has since left the military. The apology followed a report released on Wednesday by the South Korean Board of Audit and Inspection,
Indonesian police have arrested 13 people after shocking images of alleged abuse against small children at a daycare center went viral, sparking outrage across the nation, officials said on Monday. Police on Friday last week raided Little Aresha, a daycare center in Yogyakarta on Java island, following a report from a former employee. CCTV footage circulating on social media showed children, most younger than two, lying on the floor wearing only diapers, their hands and feet bound with rags. The police have confirmed that the footage is authentic. Police said they also found 20 children crammed into a room just 3m by 3m. “So
About 240 Indians claiming descent from a Biblical tribe landed at Tel Aviv airport on Thursday as part of a government operation to relocate them to Israel. The newcomers passed under a balloon arch in blue and white, the colors of the Israeli flag, as dozens of well-wishers welcomed them with a traditional Jewish song. They were the first “bnei Menashe” (“sons of Manasseh”) to arrive in Israel since the government in November last year announced funding for the immigration of about 6,000 members of the community from the states of Manipur and Mizoram in northeast India. The community claims to descend from
‘TROUBLING’: The firing of Phelan, who was an adviser to a nonprofit that supported the defense of Taiwan, was another example of ‘dysfunction’ under Trump, a US senator said US Secretary of the Navy John Phelan has been fired, a US official and a person familiar with the matter said on Wednesday, in another wartime shakeup at the Pentagon coming just weeks after US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ousted the Army’s top general. The Pentagon announced his departure in a brief statement, saying he was leaving the administration “effective immediately,” but it did not provide a reason or say whether it was his decision to go. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Phelan was dismissed in part because he was moving too slowly to implement reforms to
RSS