mimblr.com

A claim by the senior United Nations official in charge of humanitarian relief that up to 300 000 people have died in Darfur, western Sudan, since fighting erupted there in 2003 has reignited controversy over whether mortality figures are being deliberately inflated, or understated, for political reasons.
John Holmes, a former British diplomat who is UN Under-Secretary-General for humanitarian affairs, gave the new estimated figure in a report to the security council last week. The previous UN estimate for deaths from all causes, including disease, malnutrition, reduced life expectancy and direct combat, was 200 000.
The 50% increase in total fatalities has reportedly surprised UN agencies and NGOs in Darfur. The crisis, in which 2,7-million people have been displaced, has turned into the world’s biggest relief operation, involving 14 000 humanitarian workers and an annual cost of $800-million.
Sudan’s Islamic government has strongly objected to Holmes’s total. Its official total of about 10 000 deaths since 2003 is widely dismissed as unrealistic. But Khartoum says it has only counted people killed in fighting. It argues that because of the relief effort and, for example, an absence of epidemics, Darfur’s six-million population is healthier overall than inhabitants of southern Sudan and some sub-Saharan countries.
Holmes later conceded that the 300 000 total “is not a very scientifically based figure”. He said it was a “reasonable extrapolation” from the earlier UN estimate of 200 000. But that figure has also been challenged as too high in some quarters.
In a study of mortality trends in Darfur, published in August last year by the independent New York-based Social Science Research Council, Alex de Waal, a leading Sudan expert and disaster demographer, said the US General Accounting Office (GAO) had reviewed all relevant mortality surveys since 2003.
The GAO concluded that the most reliable was that conducted by the World Health Organisation-affiliated Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (Cred) in Brussels.

mg.co.za