In an Oct. 18 statement, Joe Distefano, ACT-Caritas Darfur Emergency Response operation director, said, “We have a humanitarian problem that will not go away quickly.” The logistics of providing aid grows consistently more complicated as an additional 55,000 people have been displaced due to the newest eruption of violence. All “non-life-saving work” has been suspended in the most volatile areas, he added.   

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon condemned the killings. He sent his newly appointed representative, Ashraf Jahangir Qazi, to a top level meeting Oct. 23 in Khartoum. There, he’ll meet for several days with the heads of state from surrounding nations to establish the ground work for a diplomatic resolution. Internal fighting is on the increase, and LRA rebels are suspected of driving the violence as they make a land grab for additional territory before mediation efforts take hold of the nearly 5-year-old civil war.

An infusion of U.N.-AU peacekeeping forces is anticipated to be deployed before the year is out. A Ban Ki-Moon gained U.N. authorization of the troops in the summer. A total of 26,000 peacekeepers are slated to help stem the tide of violence erupting from various factions, including Sudan-based rebel troops, Janjaweed bandits and governmental forces in Sudan.   

Meanwhile, adding to the tension is the fact that al-Bashir has refused to turn over his Interior Minister Ahmad Harun to the International Criminal Court. Harun is charged with the responsibility of more than 200,000 deaths in Darfur. Support for Darfur continues to be a necessity. To advocate for an end to the violence, visit http://act-intl.org/actcaritas/index.html