07/16/2006

One of the babies was born just an hour before we visited the ARC clinic. The midwives run active pre- and post-natal programs when they aren’t delivering babies. More than half the babies born in the clinic (14 out of 20 as of our visit) have been girls. The population of Darfur, much of which is arid, has grown from 1.5 million in 1970 to six million today. The increased competition for grazing and farming land and friction between herders, who tend to be Arab, and farmers, who tend to be African, are reasons for the current fighting.