Sudan’s people are trapped in `inferno of brutal violence’ as famine and fighting close in, UN says

By EDITH M. LEDERER
Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The Sudanese people “are trapped in an inferno of brutal violence” with famine, disease and fighting “closing in” and no end in sight, the top U.N. humanitarian official in the war-torn country says. Clementine Nkweta-Salami told a U.N. press conference Wednesday that “horrific atrocities are being committed with reckless abandon, reports of rape, torture and ethnically motivated violence are streaming in and almost nine million people have been forced to flee their homes in what is now the world’s largest displacement crisis. Earlier this month, the U.N. food agency warned Sudan’s warring parties that there is a serious risk of widespread starvation and death in Darfur and elsewhere in Sudan if they don’t allow humanitarian aid into the vast western region.