Sudan's ethnic cleansing

So it is in Sudan, where atrocities are being committed by the ruling National Islamic Front in the region of Darfur, near the border with Chad. During a visit to the region in December, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's Special Envoy for Humanitarian Needs in Sudan, Eric Vraalsen, said he was shocked by what he saw of conditions for internally displaced people and refugees in Chad. In the intervening two months, the situation has only become worse. Although Sudan's central government denies access to relief organizations, a tidal wave of human suffering looms ahead.

The dictatorship in Khartoum is responsible for driving more than 700,000 people from their homes. UN staff members working on this humanitarian calamity fear that 3 million more, defined as war-affected civilians, are at imminent risk. Estimates of the number already killed run as high as 30,000, and, with agricultural production brought to a halt, mass starvation may soon accompany genocidal massacres, death by exposure, and disease.

Amnesty International and the Associated Press have reported the regime's use of bombers to attack villages of the tribes asking for autonomy from the central government and a fair share of Sudan's natural resources. As in southern Sudan -- where 2 million people have died in a war between the Arab Muslim regime in the north and black African Christians and animists of the south -- Khartoum has armed Arab militia forces known as the Janjaweed to loot and burn African villages. The principal difference is that in western Sudan, the victims as well as the raiders are Muslim.

On Thursday, three small rebel groups in western Sudan said they would attend peace talks in Geneva Feb. 14. The Bush administration, which has been promoting peace talks for southern Sudan, should back the Geneva talks as well. But there is an even more pressing need to make Khartoum cease denying access to displaced refugees of Western Sudan. The world must be made aware of their plight and see to it that they are sheltered, fed, and returned safely to their homes.