Conflict destroying lives and livelihoods in war-torn west

Conflict in Northern Darfur State of western Sudan is devastating social infrastructure and placing an increasing number of people at risk of hunger, according to agencies working in the region. A survey conducted by an NGO, Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG), in February and March revealed that 40,000 households in Northern Darfur have missed this year's cropping seasons due to displacement. Many of those who did cultivate, had their crops stolen. A spokeswoman for the World Food Programme, Laura Melo, told IRIN on Thursday the conflict was having a "detrimental impact" on food production in the region, which was already debilitated by four consecutive years of drought. While the conflict had started in February 2003, it had intensified during the May planting season, she said. Many of those who had managed to plant were forced to leave their homes before the harvest or had their fields burned. Others have had their homes and food stocks burned and looted during attacks, she said. With no signs of an improvement in the conflict, the next planting season in April/May may also be "very limited", Melo warned. This would have a major impact on food availability and leave people dependent on food aid for another year, she said. "A widespread humanitarian disaster looms for the population of Darfur unless large-scale humanitarian assistance is rapidly made possible," commented a humanitarian source working in the region. The cyclical 'hunger gap' period from March until rains began in June was likely to be severely exacerbated this year, she said. Meanwhile, many market systems in the region have been destroyed and general insecurity on roads has halted commercial transport, according to ITDG. All markets in the Jabal Si area and most markets in Kabkabiyah were closed, this in a region where crop failure last year made most people dependent on markets for food, it said. According to the survey, 60 percent of villages in Northern Darfur, home to about 1.5 million people, have been destroyed, burned or abandoned because of fear of attacks from the warring parties. Even in undestroyed villages, over 50 percent of households had migrated, the report said, some of them to hide in mountainous areas and others fleeing temporarily to avoid either aerial bombardments or compulsory recruitment by the region's two rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement. Much of the region's infrastructure and trees have also been destroyed. In Kabkabiyah, over 150 irrigation pumps had been lost, damaged or looted from farms, and 35 shallow wells destroyed, ITDG reported. Fruit trees in the region, a valuable sources of food, had also been damaged or cut down - including almost 3,000 mango trees, 200 guava trees, 1,200 grapefruit trees, 900 citrus trees, and 220 banana trees. According to the NGO, prices had risen to as high as 10 goats for one sack of millet, from one to two goats per sack before the conflict escalated.