Plea for funds as Darfur death toll reaches 70,000

AT least 70,000 people have died in refugee camps in Sudan’s Darfur region since March, said the UN’s health agency today.

The World Health Organisation warned the mortality rate will not fall unless countries provide more money.

“We are running on a threadbare, hand-to-mouth existence, and if the plight of these people in Darfur is as important to the international community as it seems to be then we would have expected more long-term support,” said WHO’s head of crisis operations Dr David Nabarro.