Darfur's turn for the worse

The situation in Sudan's Darfur region, already considered to be the world's most complex humanitarian emergency, is expected to worsen this year before it gets any better.

Troubles are mounting on many fronts. Attacks on non-Arab villagers by Arab militias continue. Aid workers say their stores of grain and other essentials for the region's 2.8 million people who rely on food aid are nearly depleted. The conflict has spread into neighboring Chad.

Sudan's government is cooperating less with Western nations and aid groups. And whatever the outcome of a key decision by the African Union (AU) Friday, there's little likelihood that teams of UN peacekeepers will be in place to quell the troubles before next year.

The continentwide organization is expected to vote Friday on whether to transfer its beleaguered military mission in Darfur to UN control. Once considered a fait accompli, the handover is now in doubt because of intense lobbying by Sudan's government, which is pressing its opposition from the UN to the streets of Khartoum, where the government sponsored a demonstration this week against a handover. President Omar el Bashir told reporters menacingly that Darfur would be a "graveyard" for UN troops.

It all portends more stories like those of Jidu Bakr - a lean man with a distant stare who's squatting at the edge of Darfur's largest displaced-persons camp. Huts made of plastic and mud stretch for four miles across the sandy scrub. Last month, Mr. Bakr led three dozen of his kinsmen here, walking nearly 100 miles to escape Arab militia. He's one of 70,000 people the UN says have been recently displaced.

"It was impossible to live," he says, looking distastefully at the horizon of plastic roofs. "So now we've come here."

In all, "the trend is definitely a negative one," says Gemmo Lodesani, the UN's deputy humanitarian coordinator for Darfur, a region the size of Texas. Three years ago, non-Arab rebels took up arms citing marginalization by the central government. The government responded by backing Arab militias that swept some 2 million people into camps and killed at least 200,000.

After a year of relative stability, many thought the problem was improving. As recently as late-January, there was enough cautious optimism - in talks between Darfur rebel groups and the government, in African diplomacy, and in the government's desire for a political accord - that US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazier said she expected "the situation in Darfur to be resolved by next year. I think you'll see a UN peacekeeping force and resettlement" of displaced villagers.

Hardly anyone in Sudan is talking like that now. Humanitarian and military officials say the conflict is more complex than ever. Sometimes Arab horsemen known as janjaweed assault villages with the help of government troops. At other times, Arab militiamen, often portrayed as simple tools of the government, exchange fire with Sudanese forces, as they did during a recent attack on women gathering firewood outside Kalma Camp in South Darfur. Elements of Darfur's splintered rebel groups attack government targets - and each other. All parties are accused of banditry, which makes the delivery of food and medical supplies almost impossible in some areas of Darfur.

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