Darfur Death Toll Underreported

Well, this can't be much of a surprise. I've been using a figure of 270,000 people killed in the course of the Darfur genocide, but appearently that figure may still be too low:

By using scientific sampling techniques and data from camps for displaced persons, two researchers based in the United States estimated that as many as 255,000 people have died, though they believe the actual number may be much higher.

“We could easily be talking about 400,000 deaths,” said John Hagan, a sociologist at Northwestern University and an author of the article, along with Alberto Palloni, a demographer at the University of Wisconsin. “And when you’re talking about genocide, it’s essential to properly identify the scale of death,” Dr. Hagan said in a telephone interview.

In the past, American and United Nations officials have used a range of estimates, from 60,000 to 300,000, to quantify the killing in Darfur, which sank into chaos in 2003. The war started as an uprising of African tribes against Sudan’s Arab rulers but soon degenerated into a conflict with many warring parties and civilians bearing the brunt of the fighting.

The Sudanese government has not released comprehensive casualty figures, but health organizations working in Darfur have surveyed survivors at random about family members who were killed.

Sudan also refuses to let the UN take over peacekeeping duties from the African Union, and its ongoing support of the janjaweed in its fighting, which has been in an upsurge in recent weeks does not help matters.

Save Darfur has more, including a note about the rally being held this Sunday in NYC.