According to this article, yep.

According to this article, yep. That seems to be the case.

And it indeed seems as if the situation is worse than previously thought.

UNITED NATIONS - NASA (news - web sites) photos of the
Darfur region of western Sudan show destruction in nearly 400 villages,
and there have been reports of fighting or threatened attacks in every
camp for displaced people, the U.S. aid chief said Wednesday. Andrew
Natsios, administrator of the Agency for International Development,
warned that time is running out to help 2 million Sudanese in desperate
need of aid in Darfur. He said his agency's estimate that 350,000 could
die of disease and malnutrition over the next nine months "is
conservative." {...}We've now analyzed 576 villages, 300 of which are
completely destroyed, 76 of which are substantially destroyed," he
said. "When we checked them on the ground, we confirmed what we found.
We are going to watch them, using aerial photography for the duration
to track what's happening."

Contrast that with the Human Rights Watch report's numbers reported in this post:

BRANCACCIO: How many villages did you see? FLINT: I
probably saw about 17. But it's hard to move. I mean, I moved with a
force of probably about 100 men. Some close to me. Some further out.
Some in advance.
It's a huge, Darfur — the size of Texas. It's very hard to know
what's going on. And it's very hard to be blanket. Because I think not
every area, the war will not be the exactly the same in every area. So,
I basically selected a block. And I looked at the 60 square kilometer,
25 square mile block, which had 14 villages. And I visited all those
villages but one. Eleven had been burned. And if there were huts
remaining, it was a handful. All the others had gone.

While Flint chose a block of land because of her limited time and
resources, who knew that the actual number of villages that would show
damage is tallied at almost four hundred? FOUR HUNDRED.
Let that number sink in. All I can say is that since the mainstream
American media seems intent on ignoring this story as too inconvenient
to cover, and we apparently are forced to rely upon aid workers for
intelligence, let's hope that NASA keeps a satellite or two tasked on
Darfur so we at least have some information as to the width and breadth of this genocide.

Natsios said the U.S. government has spent $116 million on
the relief effort in Sudan — more than all other donors combined —
"and we pledged $188 million between now and the end of next year." The
United States is moving "with a maximum sense of urgency to try to save
lives," said Ranneberger, who accompanied Natsios. "We don't have time
to sit around also and decide, is this ethnic cleansing or is this
genocide, or what is it." Natsios said President Bush (news - web
sites) has made clear to Bashir that U.S.-Sudanese relations will not
be normalized "until these atrocities are stopped and until all
impediments to the relief effort are ended." "They badly want the
normalization of relations" after an agreement ending a 21-year civil
war between government forces and rebels in southern Sudan. "You cannot
have peace in the south and a new civil war in the west," Natsios said.
"It's just not going to happen."

Finally! Someone said it. Question is, when is the UN going to say the same? Or even do the same?

UPDATE: 06/01/2004 Courtesy of the Enlightened Cynic a link to the International Crisis Group's recommendations for action in Darfur.

The Sudan government has effectively played on fears that
its peace talks with the SPLA in Naivasha (the regional,
Intergovernmental Authority on Development, IGAD, process) might
unravel as a means to continue its brutal strategy while shielding
itself from criticism. Western governments have played directly into
that strategy. They have given total priority to Naivasha while only
quietly engaging Khartoum about Darfur in an effort to secure
incremental improvements in humanitarian access. They have refrained
from directly challenging it there even while attacks continue and
access is continually impeded. But a failure to resolve the
catastrophic Darfur situation will undermine not only the last stages
of negotiation in Naivasha but also the prospects for implementing
whatever agreement is ultimately reached there.
Urgent action is required on several fronts if "Darfur 2004" is not to
join "Rwanda 1994" as shorthand for international shame.

Go read the whole thing.

UPDATE II: political scientist and fellow blogger Daniel Geffen chimes in with a post
about a CARE breakfast---with Darfur as its main focus---that he
attended this morning. Nick Kristof, one of a very few western
journalists who has actually been writing about Darfur, spoke.
Interesting observations all around.

Posted by: Kathy at 12:34 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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