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GUEST: Diana Duarte, Program Associate in the Department of Policy Analysis and Communications for Africa Action

As violence continues to escalate in Darfur, a draft resolution was introduced by Britain and the US to the United Nations Security Council yesterday to send 17,000 U.N. peacekeepers to Darfur. The resolution would transfer peacekeeping operations from the African Union to the United Nations. Recent reports from the region indicate that violence against civilians and aid workers is rising. The deputy head of the U.N. peacekeeping forces, Hedi Annabi, said that Darfurians “may have to relive the horrors of late 2003 and early 2004, and hundreds of thousands of lives will be at risk.” Overall, about 2,000 villages have been destroyed across Darfur, and violence and disease have left as many as 450,000 people dead and 2 million homeless. As the situation in Darfur continues to deteriorate, the ability of humanitarian services to provide aid has been severely hampered. According to the UN World Food Program, the number of civilians who are unable to access food aid has doubled since this past June.

On September 9th, Africa Action is planning to hold a major mobilization outside the White House to mark the 2nd year anniversary of the U.S. Government’s acknowledement of the conflict in Darfur as genocide.

For more information, visit www.africaaction.org.