Sudan: Darfur is World's Greatest Humanitarian Disaster

UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
March 22, 2004

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Nairobi

The war-torn Darfur region of western Sudan is the "world's greatest humanitarian crisis", comparable to the Rwandan genocide of 1994 in terms of human rights abuses, according to a top UN official.

Mukesh Kapila, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan, told reporters in Nairobi that the "vicious war" in Darfur had led to violations on a scale that was comparable in character to the Rwandan situation. "The only difference between Rwanda and Darfur now is the numbers involved," he said.

The pattern of organised attacks on civilians and villages, abductions, killings and organised rapes by militias was getting worse by the day, he said, and could deteriorate even further. "One can see how the situation might develop without prompt ...all the warning signs are there."

"I think some people are using the term ethnic cleansing and I would say that is not far off the mark," he added. "I think the term is being used by certain people because it's one group of people organising themselves to do away with another group of people, and that's a definition of ethnic cleansing."

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