British lawmakers said yesterday that the death toll in Darfur has been underestimated and is likely to be around 300,000, calling attacks against civilians in the western region of Sudan "no less serious" than genocide.
A report by the House of Commons' International Development Committee said a WHO estimate that 70,000 people had died from indirect effects of disease and hunger in the Darfur region was "a gross underestimate." The British report, published yesterday, says the total figure is likely to be "somewhere around 300,000." The International Development Committee said the WHO figure only counted those who died in camps for displaced people between March and mid-October 2004 and did not include people who died before reaching camps, or in inaccessible areas of Darfur.
The committee's report said the crimes committed in Darfur were "no less serious and heinous than genocide." It accused the international community of a "scandalously ineffective response" to the situation in Darfur, and said governments across the world were guilty of failing to deal with the crisis.
The report said early warnings about the emerging crisis were ignored, humanitarian agencies were slow to respond and the UN suffered from an "avoidable leadership vacuum" in Sudan at a critical time.
It also criticized the UN Security Council as driven by member states' interests in oil and exporting arms.
Baldry said the world's failure to protect the people of Darfur from the atrocities committed against them was a scandal.
"Crises such as Darfur require the world to respond collectively and effectively. Passing the buck will not do," Baldry said.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
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