Former Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke, Senator Jon S. Corzine (D-NJ), and Francis Deng of the Brookings-SAIS Project on Internal Displacement today described their recent visits to Darfur and detailed what is needed to end the ethnic conflict that has devastated the western region of Sudan.
Armed conflict in the region has left nearly 1.5 million people homeless, 50,000 dead, and hundreds of thousands susceptible to potentially life-threatening diseases. The humanitarian crisis has prompted Congress and Secretary of State Colin Powell to declare the situation a genocide. Although the U.N. Security Council in July gave the Sudanese government 30 days to protect Darfur’s citizens, only monitors have been deployed, and innocent civilians continue to be murdered, raped, and forcibly evicted from their homes.
The panelists maintained that the international community still had a role to play by providing humanitarian aid, logistical support, and much-needed equipment such as planes, automobiles, helicopters, and communications gear.
