The Darfur Contagion Spreads

I just had an email from Chad that the U.N. is today evacuating Guereda, a major town in eastern Chad that has been a base for helping Darfuri refugees. Frankly, this will mean that more Darfuri refugees will die, but the U.N. has to protect its own people as well. It’s an agonizing position for aid organizations to face when their own staff are attacked.

One of the most frustrating parts of the international failure in Darfur is that we’ve allowed the slaughter to spread from Sudan to Chad and Central African Republic. We may not be able to send troops easily into Sudan itself, but we can certainly do so in Chad (and France, under Nicolas Sarkozy, is finally preparing to do that). In the meantime, the slaughter is continuing in towns like Guereda, which used to be completely stable.