CNN: U.N.: 100,000 more dead in Darfur than reported

The number of deaths in Sudan’s Darfur region since 2006 may have been
underestimated by as much as 50 percent, the U.N.
undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs said Tuesday.

AP via IHT: UN officials say Darfur conflict is worsening

The conflict in Darfur is deteriorating, with full deployment of a new peacekeeping force delayed until 2009 and no prospect of a political settlement for a war that has killed perhaps 300,000 people in five years, UN officials said.

In The News: 300,000 lives: The cost of five years in Darfur

More than 300,000 people have been killed in Darfur since fighting
broke out five years ago, the United Nations humanitarian chief has
said.

Watch for the coming shitstorm of new Janjaweed horror stories.

These headlines and reports are bullshit: Wrong numbers, wrong conclusions, wrong focus.

The number 300,000 is an estimate based on numbers from a 2005 study. The real death number is either higher, or the death rate in Darfur has dramatically improved. But even more important, these death counts are mostly natural death which have little to do with the resource conflict and are nothing extraordinary.

Here is how the new number arose:

BBC:

An estimated 300,000 people may have died as a result of the Darfur conflict, the UN head of humanitarian affairs John Holmes says.
…
The previous figure of 200,000 came from a 2006 study by the World Health Organisation.
…
Speaking later to reporters, Mr Holmes added: "I am not trying to suggest this is a very scientifically-based figure. It is extrapolated from the 2006 figure, it is not new research."

I can not find any 2006 WHO study on mortality in Darfur. As it turns out, there is none and the 200,000 base number from which Mr Holmes extrapolates is based on a September 2005 WHO study (pdf) of June 2005 survey data.

AP recently interviewed the former U.N. humanitarian chief Jan Egeland:

Egeland said when he was interviewed at the end of 2005 "I just added the 10,000 we found that died per month in 2004. … I said well it’s 18 months, it’s 180,000." A few months later he raised it to 200,000.

"Then, the clock stopped ticking, sort of," he said in an interview earlier this month.

"You have the figure 200,000 people died in Darfur which has been used continuously since I gave it," Egeland said. "Please stop using that figure. I gave it. It’s 2 1/2 years old. It’s wrong."

The 2005 study does not give a total of 200,000. It calculated the monthly death rate within an estimated 3.2 million affected people in Darfur. Egeland just went from there by multiplying that with the number of month the conflict was ongoing.

The study found (p31):

The aggregate crude mortality rate was 0.8/10,000/day in North and 0.6/10,000/day in the West.
Neither IDPs (in or out of camps) nor residents in either State presented crude mortality or under
five mortality rates higher than the emergency thresholds.

The death rate was high, but not in emergency territory. An average rate of 0.7/10,000/day is equal to 25.6 death/1,000 population per year. Let us now check Mr. Holmes new number.

At that death rate, with a conflict affected and surveyed population of 3.2 million and 2 1/2 years since Egeland said 200,000, there now should have been 205,000 additional dead.

25.6 death / 1,000 people / year * 3,200,000 people * 2.5 years = 204,800

So if the 100,000 additional death number since 2005 Mr Holmes estimates is correct, then the situation is much, much better than it has been before. The death rate must have fallen by 50%.

So while the press is outraged about the 300,000 new total, that number would be indeed a great success.

On the other side, Mr Holmes may have plugged that number from thin air.

But the 2005 study also found that most of these death were of natural cause and especially the high small children death rate in the study was mostly from diarrhoea, i.e contaminated water. This is nothing extraordinary in any overpopulated arid area.

The current average death rate for all of Sudan is 13.6 deaths/1,000 population (CIA Word Fact Book estimate).

Compare this with some other overall country numbers:

• Afghanistan – 19.56 deaths/1,000 population
• Angola – 24.44 deaths/1,000 population
• Lesotho – 22.33 deaths/1,000 population
• Mozambique – 20.29 deaths/1,000 population
• Niger – 20.26 deaths/1,000 population
• Sierra Leone – 22.26 deaths/1,000 population
• South Africa – 22.7 deaths/1,000 population
• Swaziland – 30.7 deaths/1,000 population
• Zambia – 21.35 deaths/1,000 population

To summarize:

• The number 300,000 quoted by the press may well be wrong: too high, too low, we don’t know.
• The media interpretation of that number, "understimated", "deteriorating conflict", "war has killed", "cost" is totally upside down. If the number is correct, then the situation in Darfur has really improved.
• The situation in Darfur was and is not extraordinary.

But there is no oil in Swaziland …