Aid Worker Fears 'Disaster of Biblical Proportions' in Darfur

March 31, 2006 — -- Matthew McGarry has spent a year crisscrossing West Darfur with food and aid to help the victims of a government-supported campaign of rape, killing, looting and destruction. Unless the situation improves quickly, he fears he may have only delayed their horrible fate.

Not only has violence flared up again, hindering humanitarian aid but the conflict has spilled into neighboring Chad. To make matters worse, money is running short after a year wracked with international crises.

"If there is no progress or a solution or relief funds dry out, all the work that went in keeping people alive is going to vanish," said McGarry, a 27-year-old relief coordinator for Catholic Relief Services.

He fears a "disaster of biblical proportions" unless more people pay attention to this parched corner of Africa.

Over the last three years, about 3 million people have fled their homes and nearly 200,000 people have died as Sudan's government and pro-government Arab militias have attacked, pillaged and raped the black African population in what many have called genocide.

McGarry's mission involved finding pockets of people trickling back to Darfur to help them get back on their feet. The situation was much more dire than that.

"I have been to more countries than states, but nothing prepared me for this," he said.

"I was surrounded by human misery. It's like going back several centuries in time with a landscape that resembles the moon."He likened the scorching lunar surroundings to having a spotlight shine on one's head all day, everyday and the sand mixed in with the swarm of flies to a second skin.