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07 October 2004

USAID Warns Darfur Death Rates Likely to Rise Despite Assistance

Geneva conference hears of consequences of aid shortfall

By Wendy Lubetkin
Washington File Correspondent

Geneva -- Top U.S. aid officials are warning that death rates are likely to rise by the end of 2004 inside Darfur and in refugee camps in neighboring Chad due to a poor harvest, the weakened and vulnerable condition of people in the camps, and continuing problems for humanitarian access.

"The crisis in Darfur has not yet peaked, and we have not yet seen the worst," William Garvelink, senior deputy assistant administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), told a press conference in Geneva October 4.

"Food will run out from the harvest before the end of the year. We are going to see what you might call a tipping point in December, January, February, where the mortality rates are going to go up very high and it will be very hard for the international community to do anything to reduce those mortality rates in the short term," Garvelink said.

USAID has projected that the death toll could rise as high as 300,000 by the end of 2004 due to worsening humanitarian conditions alone, without taking into account deaths resulting from violence and the on-going conflict.

The United States government has viewed the situation in Darfur as a priority for over a year, Garvelink said. The United States has pledged nearly $300 million in assistance to help both the internally displaced people (IDPs) inside Darfur and the refugees who have crossed into Chad.

Assistant Secretary of State Arthur (Gene) Dewey, who had just returned from a trip to Chad, Darfur and Khartoum with the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and representatives of three other key donors, Japan, Germany and the European Commission, said conditions for Sudanese refugees in neighboring Chad is very difficult and could become worse if additional refugees cross the border from Darfur.

"Our estimate is that as many as 100,000 could now be making up their minds as to whether conditions are so bad in Darfur that they would need to protect themselves and their families by coming across the border into Chad," Dewey said. "We are encouraging the High Commissioner for Refugees and the NGOs to do the contingency planning that would be needed to accommodate up to another 100,000 refugees in Chad."

He emphasized that the United States is "keeping up the pressure" on Khartoum to end the violence in Darfur and to allow humanitarian agencies full access. "We are not going to rest until we have been able to get sufficient humanitarian presence and assets" to meet the humanitarian needs there, which have increased significantly in the last six weeks.

Garvelink announced that USAID would be providing $600,000 to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights to increase the number of humanitarian monitors inside Darfur from eight to 16.

Dewey described the deployment of human rights monitors as an "important test" for the government of Sudan. He said it vital to have the international humanitarian community united in their resolve to increase the number of monitors to ensure security for the IDPs.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees also has protection monitors deployed in mobile units along the border between Chad and Darfur. Their role, Dewey explained, is to "give some confidence and insurance" to the internally displaced people who have fled the "genocide that has occurred and tragically is still occurring in parts of Darfur."

The World Food Program projects a worldwide food requirement in 2005 of 2.4 billion dollars, but the U.S. and other donors are expected to provide just $1.3 billion in food assistance in the coming year, leaving a shortfall of $1.1 billion.

Garvelink said the United States -- faced with a variety of factors including higher food prices, and soaring transportation costs -- will only be able to provide around half of the food resources it provided in 2004, which means the international community will have to increase its aid.

"Food requirements in Ethiopia are going up. Darfur continues to require more food and there are food problems in southern Africa, Liberia, Congo and in a lot of other places," Garvelink said. Meanwhile, the locust invasion in the Sahel has destroyed an anticipated surplus production in Mali, Mauritania and Senegal.

(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)