To the Africa Bureau,
Middle East Online
Middle East Online has today cited the figure of 1.5 million for the number of war-related casualties in Sudan's civil conflict.
"Ignited in 1983, the civil war there has killed some 1.5 million people and displaced more than four million." ("Powell: Sudan foes pledge to reach deal")
In fact, this number is almost certainly very seriously misleading. Far and away the most authoritative source for the number of those killed as a result of war in Sudan comes from Millard Burr, formerly director of logistics for the US Agency for International Development (AID). In his December 1998 analysis for the distinguished US Committee for Refugees ("Working Document II: Quantifying Genocide in Southern Sudan and the Nuba Mountains, 1983-1998," 84 pages), Burr reached a figure of 1.9 million (which, given the evidence assembled, he reasonably characterized as conservative).
In the time since Burr completed the exhaustive research for this analysis (over five years) we can be quite certain that there have been many more than 100,000 war casualties, leaving the inescapable conclusion that more 2 million people have died as a result of this war.
Significantly, 1.5 million people (the number you cite) is the figure that Burr had reached in his first analysis (October 1993). Some sources have evidently never picked up on the fact that Burr wrote a subsequent report.
I have worked full-time as a Sudan researcher/analyst for the past five years. I have never encountered or seen reference to anything remotely comparable to Burr's authoritative analysis of either 1993 or 1998 for war casualty figures in Sudan. I don't believe such a rival analysis exists. If you know of one, please forward the source to me.
But in the absence of a rival source for a "1.5 million" figure, I think it is morally and journalistically irresponsible to continue to use that figure. For quite obviously it has the effect of eliding 500,000 (African) lives from international understanding of the scale of Sudan's catastrophe. I'm not quite sure how the figure of "1.5 million" lives on (you are not alone in continuing to cite it). But if we think about the concern for accuracy in reporting on the numbers of lives lost in Israel and the Palestinian territories, or Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Kosovo, then the elision of 500,000 lives must seem a rather consequential number (it is, to do some simple math, the equivalent of roughly 50 "Kosovo conflicts").
I hope, if Middle East Online has a "fact checker" or a "fact source," that it can be updated to reflect the authority of Burr's analysis---or that the alternative source might be forwarded to me so that I might assess the quality of its research.
Sincerely,
Eric Reeves
Smith College
Northampton, MA 01063
ereeves@smith.edu
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