A claim by the senior United Nations official in charge of humanitarian relief that up to 300Â 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 200Â 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 10Â 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 300Â 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.
Figures produced by Cred suggest that between 125Â 000 and 141Â 000 people died between 2003 and 2005. About one in five deaths was a direct result of violence. De Waal says this estimate “remains the best to date” and that the period since 2004 has seen a falling off of non-combat mortalities, as was to be expected in a protracted crisis.
Regarding the numbers specifically killed in fighting, De Waal adds: “Since the end of the major offensives in 2004, reports of violent deaths are compiled by the UN on a regular basis, though not published.
“There are peaks and lulls but the reports — which cover all significant incidents — indicate between 6Â 000 and 7Â 000 fatalities over the past two-and-a-half years.”
Using the Cred figures, that produces a high-end estimate for 2003 to 2007 of 148Â 000 dead plus an unknown but reduced number of non-combat deaths. This points to a total considerably lower than Holmes’s 300Â 000. According to the US state department’s annual country report, “approximately 1Â 600 persons” died as a result of attacks and other acts of violence in Darfur in 2007. And security in Darfur may improve further if and when the joint UN-African Union peacekeeping mission fully deploys. But critics of Sudan’s government continue to accuse it of mass slaughter, even of genocide, raising fears in Khartoum of plots for Western military intervention.
The longer-term outlook remains grim. Holmes, who spoke at the London School of Economics on Monday, said humanitarian workers could provide sticking plasters but only a political settlement would bring durable solutions.
Amid distrust on all sides, that aim remained elusive, he told the UN. “Peace seems further away today than ever,” he said. — Â