From the UK Tablet

This is a tragedy foretold: the UN and aid agencies have been warning for months about what was going to happen in Darfur. Many are pointing to the frightening similarities with the great Sudanese famine of 1984-85 in which 250,000 lives were lost, a tragedy eclipsed at the time in the media by the Ethiopia/Eritrea famine. That made it easier for the Sudanese authorities to deny, first of all, that there was a food shortage and then to thwart aid efforts. Tens of thousands of lives were needlessly lost. The prospect of another such disaster is weeks – even days – away.