KHARTOUM - The number of people displaced by the conflict in Sudan’s western region of Darfur stands at two million, the UN humanitarian affairs agency said on Wednesday. Some estimates had put the number of internally-displaced people at close to 2.5 million, but the UN Office of the Coordinator for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the official number had topped two million for the first time.“By January 1, 2007, the number of displaced registered in IDP settlements rounded the figure of two million for the first time,” up 270,000 from the same period last year, the agency said in a report. “Major access restrictions, bureaucratic impediments and targeted violence have impeded the humanitarian operation to assist them,” it said.
About 200,000 people from Darfur are also believed to have sought refuge in neighbouring Chad since the deadly conflict began four years ago.
“As expected, the intensified insecurity and violence following the signing of the Darfur peace agreement in May 2006, is continuing to force substantial numbers of civilians to flee their villages and leave their cultivated farmlands,” OCHA said. “Between October and December 2006, over 160,000 people were newly displaced, half of them in South Darfur mainly due to tribal militia attacks,” it added.