Child malnutrition above emergency in West Darfur town

KHARTOUM, July 31 (Reuters) Malnutrition rates for young children have risen above emergency levels in West Darfur's capital el-Geneina and the surrounding camps, a preliminary survey by Irish aid agency Concern said.

The emergency threshold for Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM) is 15 per cent but the Concern survey in the el-Geneina area of western Sudan found the rate among children under 5-years old to be more than two percentage points above that.

Concern Country Director Janu Rao told Reuters today immediate action was needed to prevent a worsening of the Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM).

''The results reveal an increase in moderate malnutrition amongst the under-5 population with a GAM of 17.4 per cent and SAM of 1.4 per cent,'' the preliminary report said.

In 2006, 12.3 per cent of children under 5 were moderately malnourished, it added.

''This result is alarming as this survey comes at the start of the traditional 'hunger gap', with harvests not due until October/ November,'' the report said.

About 94,000 Darfuris live in camps surrounding el-Geneina town.

They fled the rape, pillage and murder that began when Sudan's government countered a rebel uprising in early 2003.

While 2.5 million people have been driven from their homes to miserable camps, the world's largest aid operation helps some 4.2 million overall, including those who remained in remote villages but are cut off from normal life and their livelihoods.

Almost 13,000 humanitarian workers providing relief in difficult and dangerous conditions have brought the crisis under control and below emergency levels.

Rao, whose aid agency Concern has worked in Darfur since 2002, said the rise in the malnutrition rate is due in part to a World Food Programme policy focusing food aid on camp residents, while people in towns who cannot afford to buy supplies at the market go without.

''It's very hard to determine who is a host and who is an IDP (internally displaced person),'' Rao told Reuters. ''Geneina is a big town.'' He also blamed increasingly dirty drinking water which has caused diarrhoea for the rise in malnutrition.

Experts estimate 200,000 have died of violence and disease in Darfur since the conflict began. Khartoum puts the death toll at 9,000 and almost daily state-owned media is reporting that 30 or even 40 per cent of Darfuris in camps are going back home.

The government has said refugee numbers in Darfur are inflated because people are attracted to free aid in the camps.

REUTERS ARB BD1447