Continued escalation in Darfur crisis

Since 19 months, Darfur has been witnessing a grave civil war and devastating humanitarian crisis that resulted in displacing some 1.5 million inhabitants and the movement of 200,000 refugees to Chad.

On the other hand, a high ranking American official expected on Monday that the crisis in Darfur will be worsen, noting that the number of killed persons may reach 300,000 this year. The American official William Jarflink considered that the crisis has not yet reached its peak and that worse days are still to come.

The American official who visited the area recently with the UNHCR commissioner said that food shortage constitutes the major problem after crops production in the vast district reached only 20% of the average production.

The pace of violence was escalated by the beginning of 2003 when the rebels carried weapons accusing the government of discriminating against African tribes in the region and arming Arab militias to expel them from their territories.

Fighting continued despite the halting of the cease fire reached between the government and the rebels in April. Some one million persons left their villages and homes to camps controlled by the government in Darfur or in neighboring Chad.