It is estimated that more than two million Sudanese have died of war-related causes since 1983 including reports of 20,000 deaths, mostly civilians, in the last three months. An estimated four million Sudanese are internally displaced, with two million living in squatter areas of Khartoum. More than three million Sudanese will require emergency food aid this year, according to the World Food Program.
Famine is a constant.
Estimates of adult illiteracy run as high as 90 percent in southern Sudan. 2172 Rayburn House Office Bldg. While human rights abuses are committed by both primary combatants, the government and groups under its control bear the greatest responsibility for human rights violations, according to the U.N. and major human rights organizations. The current government regularly blocks humanitarian relief efforts and bombs humanitarian and civilian centers. Southern Sudanese are victimized by slave raids, which Human Rights Watch and others report are government-backed, and religious persecution, which has been called the world s worst.