Darfur facing even greater horror

As fighting in Sudan’s western region of Darfur escalates once again, the world’s biggest humanitarian catastrophe is poised to become an even worse disaster. Aerial bombardments by the government and ground fighting with rebel forces are displacing yet more villagers and preventing aid workers from getting relief to people in the most insecure areas. “If the humanitarian operation were to collapse, we could see hundreds of thousands of deaths and a man-made catastrophe of an unprecedented scale in Darfur,” UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland warned in late August.