[Anonymous]

Water find ‘may end Darfur war’
A
huge underground lake has been found in Sudan’s Darfur region,
scientists say, which they believe could help end the conflict in the
arid region.Some 1,000 wells will be drilled in the region, with the
agreement of Sudan’s government, the Boston University researchers
say.Analysts say competition for resources between Darfur’s Arab nomads
and black African farmers is behind the conflict.More than 200,000
Darfuris have died and 2m fled their homes since 2003.”Much of the
unrest in Darfur and the misery is due to water shortages,” said
geologist Farouk El-Baz, director of the Boston University Center for
Remote Sensing, according to the AP news agency.”Access to fresh water
is essential for refugee survival, will help the peace process, and
provides the necessary resources for the much needed economic
development in Darfur,” he said.

‘Significant’
The
team used radar data to find the ancient lake, which was 30,750 km2 –
the size of Lake Erie in North America – the 10th largest lake in the
world.A similar discovery was made in Sudan’s neighbour Egypt, where
wells have been used to irrigate 150,000 acres of farmland, the
researchers say.    The discovery is “very significant”, Hafiz Muhamad
from the lobby group Justice Africa told the BBC’s Focus on Africa
programme.”The root cause of the conflict is resources – drought and
desertification in North Darfur.”He says this led the Arab nomads to
move into South Darfur, where they came into conflict with black
African farmers.He also said that it has long been known there was
water in the area but the government had not paid for it to be
exploited.French researcher Alain Gachet has also been using satellite
images to look for new water resources in Darfur.Last month, the UN
Environmental Programme (Unep) said there was little prospect of peace
in Darfur unless the issues of environmental destruction were
addressed.It said deserts had increased by an average of 100 km in the
last 40 years, while almost 12% of forest cover had been lost in 15
years.Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said climate change was partly to
blame for the conflict in Darfur in an editorial for US newspaper The
Washington Post in June

[Author]

July 18, 2007 at 1:50 PM