Red Cross launches Darfur appeal

The British Red Cross has launched an urgent appeal to help tens of thousands of people struggling to survive in refugee camps in Darfur as a result of the conflict in Sudan.

The aid agency said it was providing food, water, shelter and household items to more than 100,000 people at the remote Gereida camp in South Darfur.

The British Red Cross, led by the International Committee for the Red Cross, is also running special programmes to feed children suffering from malnutrition in the camp.

Some two million people have fled their homes as a result of the four-year long crisis in western Sudan and are displaced within the region.

Thousands more have escaped into the neighbouring country of Chad, where they are struggling to survive.

Leigh Daynes, a British Red Cross spokesman who has just returned from South Darfur, said: "The conflict in Darfur has unleashed a cycle of violence that seems unstoppable.

"While the families caught in the crossfire of this conflict wait for a political solution to their plight, the British Red Cross is keeping people alive."

Money from the appeal will go towards saving people's lives in Darfur and will also help fund the Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement's work looking after nearly 50,000 Sudanese refugees in camps in Chad.

Mairi Maguire, a British Red Cross nurse in the Gereida camp said about 720 children a week were attending the feeding programme for youngsters with malnutrition, with 20 new admissions a day.

"We're seeing children of all ages from six months to 10 years of age, although the ones that are most at risk and the ones we are most concerned about are children under five."

The charity said £4 would feed a critically malnourished child for a week. A week's supply of oral rehydration salts for 100 children costs £35.

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