Darfur: 30 days is too long to wait for help, CWS says 

by Anne Walle
Church World Service

NEW YORK — Global humanitarian agency Church World Service Wednesday called on U.S. citizens to immediately pressure the United Nations and world bodies to intervene more quickly and definitively to protect more than one million black Africans threatened by the escalating crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan.

     In a second national flash e-mail campaign to its constituents, on its website and through contacts with media, CWS is urging people to write to U.S. Ambassador to the UN John Danforth, urging immediate action and greater pressure on the Sudanese government to bring the violence to an end.

     According to U.N. estimates, reports CWS Executive Director and CEO the Rev. John L. McCullough, almost 500 refugees perish daily in Darfur or in makeshift camps in neighboring Chad.  “With so many lives at risk, thirty days is far too long,” McCullough says, referring to the time for compliance allowed by a U.N. Security Council resolution passed last week.

     Other aid agencies and human rights organizations concur with that fear, citing the region’s current rainy season as breeding ground for epidemics, and diseases already showing signs of manifesting.

     Violent Arab Janjaweed militia, reportedly backed by the Sudan government, are blamed for the deaths of up to 50,000 black African villagers in Darfur. An estimated 1.2 million people have fled their homes and are now in makeshift camps elsewhere in the region or in neighboring Chad.

      Despite claims by the Sudan government that it is disarming the militia, latest reports from Darfur indicate continued if not increasing attacks on villagers.

      Declared genocide by the U.S. Congress last Friday, Darfur’s heightened violence prompted the U.N. Security Council to adopt a resolution July 30 that threatens to impose sanctions on Sudan in 30 days if its government doesn’t take action to disarm, apprehend, and prosecute the Janjaweed — and to provide access by aid agencies seeking to supply food, drinking water, and medical supplies to an estimated 300,000 displaced people facing imminent starvation.

     “The longer the international community waits, the longer violence and atrocities against civilians will occur,” says CWS’s McCullough.

      The CWS advocacy campaign urges:

• the support of an international peacekeeping force to restore order and secure humanitarian zones to facilitate assistance for refugees and internally displaced persons;
• insistence that the government of Sudan disarm and apprehend Janjaweed militias;
• a demand that the government of Sudan provide full access to humanitarian groups to Darfur, and make all government resources available for the delivery of aid.

      Early in July, CWS issued a $1,750,000 fundraising appeal, launched a nationwide direct mail campaign, and increased its national advocacy efforts on behalf of those affected in Darfur.

      CWS Director of Emergency Response Rick Augsburger says, “We’ve raised a quarter of a million dollars in about a month’s time. We’re confident we can reach the campaign goal, particularly now with greater world and media attention turned to Darfur.”

      Beginning in July, and over the next 18 months, CWS is assisting in providing food, medicines, access to clean water, agricultural inputs and tools, and trauma care to 500,000 of the most vulnerable people in the Darfur region. The program includes a supplemental feeding program for 50,000 affected children.

      Over the weekend, CWS partners bringing aid to Kubum and Um Labassa, 100 kilometers west of Nyala, reported having their trucks stuck in wadis or gullies, due to the rainy season, and fear the roads may be totally cut off soon.

      According to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), there are approximately 10,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) in Kubum alone and about 2,400 in Um Labassa.

      CWS partners working through the coalition umbrella of Action by Churches Together (ACT)/Caritas say the real need for displaced people Iin the Um Labassa and Kubum area is shelter.

      Meanwhile, in a weekend of to-and-fro’ing, Sudan’s government in Khartoum first rejected then reluctantly agreed to the U.N. Security Council disarmament resolution on Darfur. As of an Associated Press report Aug. 2, the country’s army had labeled the U.N. resolution on Darfur as a “declaration of war.”

      The U.N. resolution was passed 13-0 (China and Pakistan abstaining). If Sudan fails to comply within 30 days to the Security Council resolution, the council will consider further action.

      Contributions to support relief work in Darfur may be made through Presbyterian Disaster Assistance — call PresbyTel at 1-800-872-3283 — or sent to Church World Service Sudan-Darfur Crisis Appeal #640B. Secure contributions may be made online via our website at www.churchworldservice.org or sent to Church World Service, P.O. Box 968, Elkhart, IN 46515.