The number of people killed in Sudan's Darfur conflict has reached into the hundreds of thousands -- not tens of thousands as has often been reported, according to an article which appeared yesterday in the journal Science.
By using scientific sampling techniques and data from camps for displaced persons, two researchers based in the US estimated that as many as 255,000 people have died, though they said they believed the actual number may be much higher.
"We could easily be talking about 400,000 deaths," said John Hagan, a sociologist at Northwestern University and an author of the article, along with Alberto Palloni, a demographer at the University of Wisconsin. "And when you're talking about genocide, it's essential to properly identify the scale of death," Hagan said in a telephone interview.
In the past, US and UN officials have used a range of estimates, from 60,000 to 300,000, to quantify the killing in Darfur, which sank into chaos in 2003. The war started as an uprising of African tribes against Sudan's Arab rulers but soon degenerated into a conflict with many warring parties and civilians bearing the brunt of the fighting.
The Sudanese government has not released comprehensive casualty figures, but health organizations working in Darfur have surveyed survivors at random about family members who were killed.
In their article, "Death in Darfur," Hagan and Palloni used seven of these surveys to build projections of the death toll, which ranged from 10,000 deaths a month in 2004 to around 5,000 a month more recently. These estimates include natural deaths, though Hagan said that number was only 10 percent to 15 percent of the total. He said part of his research was based on a rough ratio of one death for every 14 people living in a camp.
"It's an extremely challenging research environment," he said. "But ultimately, you've got to come up with numbers."
Hagan attributed underreporting to the obvious difficulties of physically counting victims in a conflict as inaccessible as Darfur's, as well as a general tendency by the news media to use conservative estimates about unverifiable casualty claims.
Also, some news organizations continued to use an outdated estimate of 70,000 deaths, made once by the WHO.
TYPHOON: The storm’s path indicates a high possibility of Krathon making landfall in Pingtung County, depending on when the storm turns north, the CWA said Typhoon Krathon is strengthening and is more likely to make landfall in Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said in a forecast released yesterday afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the CWA’s updated sea warning for Krathon showed that the storm was about 430km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point. It was moving in west-northwest at 9kph, with maximum sustained winds of 119kph and gusts of up to 155kph, CWA data showed. Krathon is expected to move further west before turning north tomorrow, CWA forecaster Wu Wan-hua (伍婉華) said. The CWA’s latest forecast and other countries’ projections of the storm’s path indicate a higher
SLOW-MOVING STORM: The typhoon has started moving north, but at a very slow pace, adding uncertainty to the extent of its impact on the nation Work and classes have been canceled across the nation today because of Typhoon Krathon, with residents in the south advised to brace for winds that could reach force 17 on the Beaufort scale as the Central Weather Administration (CWA) forecast that the storm would make landfall there. Force 17 wind with speeds of 56.1 to 61.2 meters per second, the highest number on the Beaufort scale, rarely occur and could cause serious damage. Krathon could be the second typhoon to land in southwestern Taiwan, following typhoon Elsie in 1996, CWA records showed. As of 8pm yesterday, the typhoon’s center was 180km
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STILL DANGEROUS: The typhoon was expected to weaken, but it would still maintain its structure, with high winds and heavy rain, the weather agency said One person had died amid heavy winds and rain brought by Typhoon Krathon, while 70 were injured and two people were unaccounted for, the Central Emergency Operation Center said yesterday, while work and classes have been canceled nationwide today for the second day. The Hualien County Fire Department said that a man in his 70s had fallen to his death at about 11am on Tuesday while trimming a tree at his home in Shoufeng Township (壽豐). Meanwhile, the Yunlin County Fire Department received a report of a person falling into the sea at about 1pm on Tuesday, but had to suspend search-and-rescue
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