When Enough is Enough

Ten years after Rwanda's 800,000 Tutsi tasted it in 100 days, almost forty years after Nigeria's two million Easterners sampled it for 30 months, and after decades of two million southern Sudanese swallowing it, it came to the Muslim-African population in the Darfur area of western Sudan. By the end of March 2004, about 700,000 refugees had fled their homes; an estimated 1000 were dying every week; and over 100,000 reportedly fled into the large expanse of desolate land in neighbouring Chad. The exodus, in socio-environmental terms was somewhat of a flying-pan-to-fire situation.