DISASTER IN DARFUR - UCSB Department of History - University of ...

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all my travels as the head of the World Food Program, I have never seen people who are
as frightened as those displaced in Darfur.” [“Sudan humanitarian crisis characterized by
violence and fear,” UN News Centre, 7 May 2004]
The International Community Struggles to Respond
Although the numbers of IDPs and refugees steadily increased during the spring
and summer of 2003 as the fighting escalated, it was not until September that the
magnitude of the destruction and displacement began to be recognized by the
international humanitarian agencies. In October Médicines Sans Frontières reported that
thousands of IDPs had been traumatized by the violence, but when the UN and other
humanitarian agencies sought entrance into Darfur to assess and relieve the suffering they
were met with manipulative obstruction from the Khartoum government. The UN
humanitarian coordinator in the Sudan, Mukesh Kapila, bitterly complained about slow
and cumbersome travel procedures and, “in some cases, permission to visit affected areas
is withheld…[he] warned that the situation in the Greater Darfur Region of western
Sudan may emerge as the worst humanitarian crisis in the Sudan since 1998.”
[“Statement from UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan,” Nairobi/Khartoum,
November 10, 2003] By the end of November the international relief agencies were
thoroughly alarmed “about a looming food crisis in western Sudan” particularly when the
Ministry of Agriculture refused food aid for Darfur from the US Agency for International
Development (USAID). [Agence France-Presse, November 14, 2003; Kamal al Sadiq in
Al-Ayam, November 16, 2003, no. 7825] In December the UN secretary-general’s
Special Envoy for Humanitarian Affairs for Sudan, Tom Vraalsen, was more than blunt.
“Delivery of humanitarian assistance to populations in need is hampered mostly by