U.N. asks US$236 million to aid Sudanese in 'biggest humanitarian crisis'

Thursday June 3rd, 2004.

GENEVA, June 03, 2004 (AP) -- The U.N. appealed Thursday for $236 million to meet emergency needs this year of Sudanese facing "the biggest humanitarian crisis in the world today."

"We admit we are late," said U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland after meeting with 50 donor nations on the need to help more than 1 million people who have been forced from their homes in western Sudan over the past year by government forces and militias.

The U.S. announced Thursday it would be adding $188.5 million over the next 18 months to the $100 million that Washington has already donated since early last year, but it wasn't immediately clear how much would be forthcoming this year.

"The European Union is delivering large quantities of assistance to Darfur, and we stand ready to increase our aid," said Irish Development Minister Tom Kitt, speaking for the 25-nation bloc.

Already thousands have been killed in clashes between Arab militias and the African population of Darfur province, and the death toll among malnourished people has started to mount, U.N. officials have said.

"We are going to have a large number of people die no matter what we do," said Andrew S. Natsios, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development. "The question is now how can we minimize the death and the suffering."

Egeland cited restrictions placed by the Sudanese government on international assistance and the viciousness of attacks by government- supported militias on the population of the western province of Sudan .

"The constraints are so great," he said.

The crisis, in which "hundreds of thousands" might to die in coming months, will be "of enormous proportions, even in the best of circumstances" he said.

Already, Egeland said, "we are dealing with the biggest humanitarian crisis in the world today."

More than a million people who have fled their homes in the region are in desperate need of food and other aid, as are more than 140,000 people living in refugee camps in neighboring Chad, Egeland said.

Getting the aid to them will be complicated in coming weeks when the rainy season makes many roads impassable for trucks, he said.

"It's a race against time," Egeland said.

James Morris, executive director of the U.N. World Food Program, said he had recently talked to refugees in the region.

"I have never in my life seen people more frightened," Morris said. "The way they've been victimized, brutalized, raped and treated in the most inhumane way possible is extraordinary."

Morris and other officials told a news conference that it was up to the Sudanese government to provide security and rein in the militias, as demanded by the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday.

"The government needs to take responsibility for this and knock it off and get it under control quickly," Morris said.