After leading a high level humanitarian mission to Sudan and then travelling to visit refugee camps in eastern Chad from April 28-30, WFP's Executive Director James Morris called a press conference in London on May 4 to highlight the severity of the humanitarian challenge facing refugees and IDPs from Darfur's ongoing conflict. To date, the fighting has displaced over a million people within the remote western Sudanese region and pushed more than 100,000 across the border into Chad.

The following is an edited transcript of Mr.Morris's appeal for international assistance at the London news conference.

Could you give us more of a sense of what you saw in Darfur? What was the landscape was like? What do you think the most urgent need is for those people still inside Darfur?

The landscape is barren and dust. It is a very tough environment under the best of circumstances. The homes in the villages have some sort of adobe base with conical straw roofs. Now most of them are burnt. People have gone through in the most malicious, heinous way, and burned down homes. You see pots and remnants of clothing that have been burned. The landscape is strewn with this kind of stuff. Of a community of 250 families there might be just three men left. These three men are just bewildered. They know they'd like to replant their crops after the rainy season, but they're frightened, very frightened. The government needs to behave in such a way that security comes back. But there's a great gap of trust between the population and government, so the government's got a big job to do.

The families have gone to camps. Usually the camps are between ten and fifty kilometres away. The camps are full of children and people who are sad and listless.

We're concerned about food and nutrition and its impact on health. MSF France said the number of children under five who are chronically, or acutely malnourished, has gone from a few hundred to more than two thousand in four or five weeks. There is nothing more important in the life of a very young child than nutrition. If that issue is not seriously addressed, it becomes a problem that a human being can never recover from.

Who makes the camps inside Darfur and who is protecting the camps? Is it the government?

The governors of the territories had a role working with the central government and the UN community has had some input.

Are they protected these camps?

Well, I think there is some degree of protection inside the camp but people are frightened to venture outside. The freedom of movement, to voluntarily come and go is a basic human right. A camp of 60,000 internally displaced people is a very sizeable operation. There is some community governance and tribal governance that comes along with this, and that helps with security issues within the camp.

I'm interested to know what the government people accompanying you told you about why the villages were burnt out. Did you meet any militia? And did you see any sign that the government is controlling the militias?

We were there for just a short period of time. We had extensive conversations about protection and the security issue. Ultimately, the Government of Sudan is responsible for the people at risk. All the UN community or the NGO community can do is to respond to humanitarian issues. Each time we raised these issues and concerns, we were assured that the government was taking them seriously and would be focussed on the issues of protection and security and the issue of access for NGOs and the UN family. Time will tell.

Because it is so sad, so tragic, so serious, so many people at risk, there will be sizeable interest from the international community on how the Government of Sudan handles these matters.

Were you convinced?

This is a conflict that has been going on for years, but the fact of the matter is that the conflict is much more serious today than it has been historically. This is the first time there have been a million displaced people and a hundred thousand refugees in Chad. It is clear that the magnitude of the conflict has been exacerbated, accelerated beyond anything it has been in recent history. I'm willing to give people a chance, to trust them in the beginning.

My focus from WFP's point of view, and my assignment as the leader of this humanitarian mission, was on the very serious humanitarian concerns of people. These include water, healthcare, sanitation, clothing, food and education. For us to make progress on these issues, the government has to do its job in terms of protection and security. The world won't tolerate a million people being at risk.

You've only got about a month or so before the rainy season begins. Do you think you'll really be able to help these people in time?

In Chad, we need to pre-position about 7000 tonnes of food in the next few weeks. We have about 3,500 tonnes of food pre-positioned already. We will have to distribute a thousand tonnes a week. I believe we can do that. If the problem doesn't get larger than we have anticipated we'll be able to do our job there.

We've been looking at say 100,000 people, plus around 12,500 affected people in the areas where the refugees have come from. That puts an enormous burden on the environment. If suddenly the number went up to 160,000 or 200,000 or more, then we would have a very serious problem. The landscape is such that with very heavy weather you either can't move through because of the mud or water, or if you do, you do serious damage to the roads. In those circumstances we would try to do airlifting, but you can truly only airlift modest amounts of food. But, I'm optimistic we can do our job in Chad.

I'm more troubled about the situation in the Darfur region. We're waiting for a commitment from the European Community to essentially fund our requirements in Chad, but it's a much smaller amount of money. The food request in the Darfur region for the rest of the year is about US$100 million. We have only about 30 percent of that in hand right now. We are making a very serious, very urgent appeal for people to give us cash so we can buy sorghum, which is available in Sudan right now. We always prefer local purchase and if we have the cash we can buy the sorghum and do the distribution quickly. We've had lots of meetings with our supporters and major donors and commitments in the next few days are critical to our ability to purchase the stocks.