Oxfam launches £5 million Darfur appeal

Oxfam has launched a £5 million appeal to help victims of what it is calling the world's greatest humanitarian crisis.

The charity said the money is needed to keep people alive in Sudan's strife-torn Darfur region where millions have been made homeless.

African farmers in Darfur have been killed and had their villages razed by Islamic militia known as the Janjaweed.

The farmers accuse the Sudanese government of backing the militias in an effort to ethnically cleanse the area of black Africans.

Two million people have become homeless and are living in camps along the Sudan and Chad border.

The conflict, which was originally confined to Sudan, is now spreading to Chad.

Penny Lawrence, Oxfam's international director, said: "This is the greatest concentration of human suffering in the world.

"The international community has allowed the conflict to spread, blighting the lives of some four million people and forcing many to the very brink of survival."

She said Darfuri villages are "burnt-out shells" and that four million people are dependent on aid.

She also claimed that in eastern Chad, the number of people forced to flee their homes has doubled in just four months. Around 140,000 people have been displaced due to the fighting.

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