Military

14 September 2004 – Senior officials at United Nations humanitarian agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) met this morning to discuss how to accelerate their relief efforts in the wake of a World Health Organization (WHO) report showing that hundreds of people are dying every day in Sudan's strife-torn Darfur region.

The meeting, which was convened by Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland, agreed to expand the humanitarian capacity on the ground in Darfur, UN spokesman Fred Eckhard told reporters at the daily briefing in New York.

More than 500 international staff are currently in place in Darfur, and participants at today's meeting agreed there needs to be at least 1,000 staff operating in the vast, impoverished region in Sudan's west.

WHO released a survey yesterday that indicated that more than 200 displaced people are dying every day in North and West Darfur from diseases caused by crowded, unhygienic conditions in the dozens of makeshift camps there - diarrhoea was the biggest killer - or from violent attacks.

Mr. Eckhard said today's meeting identified improving water, sanitation and public health services as priorities, as well as better managing the camps for displaced persons.

More than 1.2 million people have been uprooted from their homes because of brutal and deadly attacks by militias allied to the Sudanese Government, which is fighting an armed conflict with two rebel groups in Darfur. Another 200,000 refugees have fled to neighbouring Chad.

Meanwhile, the United States, which is sponsoring a draft Security Council resolution on the Darfur crisis, scheduled another meeting of experts this afternoon to discuss the latest version of the text.