Wednesday, June 14, 2006

If fighting between Darfur's rebel factions doesn't stop soon, thousands will starve warns German aid agency

Deutsche Welthungerhilfe has been forced to halt its relief supplies in many areas of Darfur. 385,000 people will therefore not receive food rations in June and are thus at risk of starvation. The reason behind this is the fighting going on for weeks between various groups of the SLA. On the 5th May 2006 a peace treaty was signed by the government in Khartoum and the SLA. However, this was not recognised by all the rebel groups. Since then relief organisations have not been able to access SLA-dominated areas.

"If fighting between rebel factions doesn't stop soon then thousands of people will starve," warned regional coordinator, Johan van der Kamp. "Many people received their last monthly rations at the end of May and now have nothing left." The distribution of seed has also been stopped - just before the rainy season. This means people will be unable to sow the fields and that next year there will be no harvest. - ReliefWeb June 14, 2006.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Link TV, a national, non-commercial satellite network available to 27 million households nationwide, is devoting four-hours of primetime programming to the current state of Africa and the ongoing genocide and upheaval in Darfur, as well as the nation’s hope for the future and path to recovery, beginning Tuesday, June 20 and airing again on Friday, June 30 at 5 p.m. PST and 8 p.m. EST.

The four-hour special “Crisis and Hope in Africa” highlights the voices of refugees and marginalized victims of Darfur and touches on some of the deep social and economic problems facing the nation, beginning with a clip from the heart-wrenching and critically acclaimed “Darfur Diaries.” The program will be hosted by Link TV political correspondent Mark Hertsgaard and feature American entertainer and social activist Harry Belafonte, who has been a UNICEF goodwill ambassador for nearly 20 years and initiated the idea for the 1985 “We Are the World” project, which raised $100 million in aid for Africa. Fresh from a trip to the region, Congresswoman Barbara Lee will be on hand to discuss the lasted development in the region: UN troops being sent to police Sudan.

The special will feature “What Will it Take to Stop Genocide in Darfur?” an unprecedented national discussion on how to end the genocide recorded from a web cast at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. The filming of the documentary was part of a nationwide student movement to end the genocide in Sudan led up to a series of student rallies held throughout the United States. The film showcases a panel of experts including Pulitzer Prize winning author Samantha Power, Ambassador Michael Ranneberger, who is the senior state department representative for Sudan and Sudanese human rights defender Mudawi Ibrahim Adam and award-winning journalist Jon Sawyer.

Link TV will also present “Dead Mums Don’t Cry,” a BBC Panorama investigative piece on why more than half a million African mothers die every year in pregnancy and childbirth. The show follows one woman’s struggle to prevent mothers from dying during pregnancy in her home country of Chad, where expectant women have a one in 11 chance of dying.

What can you do to help the ailing nation of Darfur and provide hope to Africa? Tune in Link TV’s revealing special Crisis and Hope in Africa, beginning at 8 p.m., Eastern Time, on June 20 and 30 to find out.

About Link TV
Link TV is a non-commercial, independent television network available in more than 27 million U.S. homes on DIRECTV channel 375 and DISH Network channel 9410. The 24-hour programming is a mix of documentaries, international news, foreign films and the best of World Music. The network recently received the first satellite-only Peabody Award for MOSAIC: World News from the Middle East, a daily news show featuring English translations of national television reports from more than 24 countries in the Middle East. Select Link TV programs are streamed on the Internet at www.linktv.org. Link TV is operated by Link Media, Inc., a California non-profit organization, with production studios in San Francisco, New York and Washington, DC.