Sudan

UN official claims Darfur conflict may have killed up to 300,000

Article published on the 2008-04-23 Latest update 2008-04-23 15:39 TU

The UN's John Holmes has said that the number of people killed because of conflict in Sudan's Darfur region could be as high as 300,000. Holmes is Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and was speaking to the Security Council yesterday.

He said that the estimation was an extrapolation from the World Health Organisation's 2006 estimate of 200,000 casualties, with the additon of a likely increase thanks to war, famine and disease.

Sudan's UN Ambassador Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem dismissed the estimate saying that the Sudanese government put the number of deaths from fighting at 10,000. This, he said, was the latest figure.

Olivier Degomme, of the Belgian-based Centre for Research into Epidemiology of Disasters, took part in the 2006 survey and believes that the UN figure is credible.  

The Security Council also heard from Rodolphe Adada, the head of the joint UN African Union mission in Darfur (Unamid). He said that the joint peacekeeping force for Darfur was unlikely to be ready before next year. He explained that the number of troops was less than 40 per cent of the required force. The peacekeeping force is expected to number 19,555 soldiers when ready.

In Sudan the first census in 15 years began yesterday. The two-week census is necessary to prepare constituencies for national elections agreed in the 2005 peace agreement. 60,000 enumerators will count an estimated 40 million inhabitants.