HABILLAH, SUDAN — Something remarkable happened this year at a clinic for malnourished infants in this West Darfur village: It ran out of patients.
And physicians at the Doctors Without Borders clinic haven't seen a single gunshot wound since last year. Now they're thinking about closing down because there is a hospital next door run by another aid agency, and a third center is under construction.
"It's getting a bit crowded here," said Sewnet Mekonnen, the clinic's field coordinator. "We're not seeing as many emergencies."
The clinic's situation highlights one positive trend lost in the barrage of grim news that continues to pour out of western Sudan: Fewer people are dying.
At the peak of the Darfur crisis three years ago, health experts estimated that 6,000 to 10,000 people were losing their lives each month to disease, hunger and violence. Today, thanks to a drop in violence and improved healthcare, that figure is estimated at 100 to 600 a month, based on United Nations mortality estimates, news reports and interviews with U.N. officials, aid workers and Western diplomats.
Exact figures are unknown because, even though the U.N. and the African Union have large missions in Darfur, no agency is officially keeping track of civilian deaths.
The U.N. informally collects reports of violence-related civilian deaths, but doesn't make the data public because it cannot verify their accuracy. However, U.N. officials did confirm a downward trend.
"Violence has subsided in the first part of 2007 and this definitely has affected the death toll," said Ali Hamati, the U.N. spokesman in El Fasher.
Those who have reviewed the U.N.'s weekly compilations say violence-related casualties this year have averaged 100 to 200 a month, with the largest number of recent deaths arising from inter-tribal clashes in southern Darfur. Overall, civilian casualties in Darfur were down 70% in the first half of 2007, compared with the same period last year, U.N. figures indicate.
Officials emphasized, however, that even with the drop in fatalities, violence and insecurity in Darfur remain a problem.
"Harassment is still going on, rape is still going on, attacks are still going on," said Annette Rehrl, spokeswoman for the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. "But the killing is not on the large scale that we saw before."
