from NationalGeographic.com
Bad news from Newsweek: The first study focusing on the death toll in Darfur has found that 200,000 to 400,000 people have died there since the violence began — a number far in excess of the tens of thousands generally reported in the media. Northwestern University sociologist John Hagan and University of Wisconsin professor Alberto Palloni today have published a study in the journal Science which estimates a significantly higher death toll than released by the U.S. Department of State, which in 2005 gave the significantly lower total of 63,000 to 146,000 dead.
Newsweek's (and, actually, HuffPo's) Tony Dokoupil spoke with Hagan and Palloni, who said that the chaotic and war-torn nature of the region makes coming up with accurate numbers challenging; and the Sudanese government isn't exactly helpful. The scientiest drew on a number of sources including a World Health Organization survey of people in displacement camps, dating from 2004. At this time, they estimate that 1 million people have been displaced in West Darfur alone.
Hagan called the underestimation of the total by the media "an overabundance of caution that approaches the irresponsible." Hagan cites reports from the BBC and Reuters from this week stating the toll as "in the tens of thousands" — "a full order of magnitude below reality." Hagan puts 200,000 as "the cautious statistical floor," estimating that the actual number could exceed 400,000.
In National Geographic, Hagan notes that the low U.S. government estimate produced "patterns of underestimation" in the press, which minimized the severity of the situation. "After that announcement, much of the media reporting started to talk in the tens of thousands rather than hundreds of thousands, or they didn't talk about deaths at all and talked exclusively about displacement. It had the effect of diminishing the sense of urgency."
A good sign: The Newsweek piece is currently the #1 article at Newsweek International. Will it make it over to the National edition? It's a web-only story right now...hopefully millions of Americans will be reading it leafing through it come Sunday. And hopefully some of them will be from the U.S. Department of State.
