“The Darfur Development Strategy acknowledges that while current conditions may not be perfect, ‘the people are ready for change’,” the Secretary-General said in his message to the Conference.

The international donor forum hosted by Qatar wrapped up today after two days of pledging which organizers had hoped would raise $7.2 billion to cover reconstruction and development of Darfur over a six-year period. According to reports, at least $3.7 billion was pledged.

“We share a collective commitment to achieving a comprehensive and inclusive peace for the people of Darfur. Resolving the conflict there remains critical to consolidating peace and stability for Sudan as a whole,” said Mr. Ban.

He noted that the long-stalled effort to find a political solution to the conflict reached a turning point last July with the adoption of the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur by the Government of Sudan and the Liberation and Justice Movement.

Last month, the Justice and Equality Movement-Sudan also agreed to sign on to the Doha Document.

Mr. Ban also urged the Government to cooperate in facilitating the work of the African Union-United Nations Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), humanitarian actors and international development partners throughout Darfur, while respecting human rights.

“The Government of Sudan must clearly demonstrate its commitment to fulfil its financial obligations to support recovery and development in Darfur,” Mr. Ban said.

Meanwhile, thousands of civilians are seeking protection, many of them with their livestock, near joint AU-UN peacekeeping teams in Muhajeria and Labado, East Darfur State, after attacks and “possible air strikes” on the towns.

“UNAMID reaffirms its commitment to protect displaced civilians,” the Mission said in a press release.

The peacekeeping mission is working with UN agencies to ascertain the best means of supporting aid delivery to the population, particularly the civilians concentrated around the team site.

“We in UNAMID condemn the use of force seen in the attack on Muhajeria and Labado towns in East Darfur. These actions only bring further suffering to the civilian population and undermine the peace process,” said the new Head of UNAMID and Joint Chief Mediator for the AU and UN, Mohamed Ibn Chambas. He officially takes up his post today.

According to the Mission, members of the Sudan Liberation Army led by Minni Minawi attacked and seized the towns on 6 April wounding at least three civilians, including a staff member from UNAMID.

“At both locations, UNAMID personnel reported several possible air strikes and are taking steps to ascertain the number of casualties caused by the fighting,” according to information in the statement.

Established in July 2007, UNAMID has the protection of civilians as its core mandate, but is also tasked with contributing to security for humanitarian assistance, monitoring and verifying implementation of agreements and assisting with an inclusive political process, among other responsibilities.

According to UN figures estimates, some 300,000 people have been killed in Darfur since the conflict between rebels, Government forces and allied militiamen erupted in 2003 and about 2.7 million others have had to flee their homes. Both sides have been accused of numerous human rights abuses.

“I have spent the past two days seeing for myself the effects of the terrible food and nutrition crisis that is now affecting at least 4.6 million people in Mali, as well as the difficulties faced by Malians affected by insecurity in the north,” the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Valerie Amos, said during her trip to the African country.

Pointing to her Tuesday visit to the Gabriel Toure nutrition centre in Bamako, the Malian capital, Ms. Amos noted that treatments costing just $100 were restoring to health numerous children affected by severe acute malnutrition and that nearly 150,000 children had been treated in similar facilities across the country.

However, despite the progress, Amos voiced concern that not enough was being done and urged donors to step up with their contributions.

“There are too many other children who are not being reached because we do not have the money to increase our operations everywhere,” she warned. “We asked for $213 million to provide life-saving projects this year; less than half of that has been provided.”

Mali is located in the Sahel region, a semi-arid belt crossing the north of Africa, which is highly exposed to the threat of famine and where 1.1 million children are currently at risk of severe acute malnutrition.

A recent report released by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) noted that Mali’s food situation was especially precarious as a plague of locusts in the country’s north was spreading and threatening agricultural production in the rest of the country.

Following her visit on Wednesday to the city of Mopti, Amos acknowledged that the delicate humanitarian situation caused by the food crisis was being further compounded by continued instability and insecurity caused by violence in the north.

In January, fighting between Government forces and Tuareg rebels broke out in the country’s north. The clashes, as well as the proliferation of armed groups in the region and political instability in the wake of a military coup d’état in March, have led the displacement of an estimated 440,000 people.

Amos observed the shipment of supplies being sent by river barge from Mopti to beleaguered towns in the north of the country, including the historic city of Timbuktu, which has been in rebel hands in since April.

“There are many people we cannot reach because so many places are too dangerous for relief organizations to work,” Amos continued, adding that “without additional support, we are not going to reach everyone who needs help.”

“If we don’t get more money, people will die and there will be more humanitarian suffering. The needs will continue to grow as long as this conflict continues – that is a sad and tragic truth,” said John Ging, the Director of the Coordination and Response Division of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

To date, the $189 million appeal for assistance for the response inside Syria is 20 per cent funded, while the $193 million appeal for the response to assist refugees in Turkey, Lebanon Jordan and Iraq is also 20 per cent funded.

“To enable humanitarian action in an incredibly difficult, dangerous environment, funding is now the number one priority in terms of unlocking a bigger humanitarian response. That’s both for inside Syria and also for the regional refugee response,” Ging told reporters in Geneva following the fourth meeting of the Syrian Humanitarian Forum.

The forum brought together over 350 participants from Member States, regional organizations, international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and UN humanitarian agencies to mobilize the necessary resources to provide assistance to the hundreds of thousands of people uprooted by the conflict, which began last year as an uprising against President Bashar Al-Assad.

“We came together today in the face of an escalating conflict, which is having the predictable devastating humanitarian and human impact,” said Mr. Ging, who added that insecurity remains a major obstacle to the full implementation of the humanitarian response plan.

He noted that there has been a “significant” scale-up of assistance over the last month, from 500,000 people provided with food assistance last month to an expected 850,000 people this month’ but despite the increase, the situation is deteriorating. “In spite of the scale-up, the gap between the needs and the means is very much still there,” he said.

Ging appealed to the donor community to scale up their donations, stating that 20 per cent funding for both appeals is insufficient.

“We have to be prepared, sadly, for a bigger demand on us collectively as this conflict continues. And we must be motivated by the plight of the Syrian people,” he said. “We cannot become numb to their suffering.”

In a statement issued yesterday, the Acting Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Vijay Nambiar, also highlighted the ongoing suffering of the Syrian people, describing recent reports of sexual violence against women, children and men by Government forces and the armed militias known as the Shabiha, as “alarming.”

He said that the prevailing atmosphere in Syria has enabled perpetrators to commit serious human rights violations, including sexual violence, with impunity. He also stressed the need for these crimes must be fully and independently investigated, and urged the Security Council to use all its tools, including possible referrals to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

“A strong signal must go to perpetrators of sexual violence that they will be held accountable for these crimes,” he stated.

Meanwhile, on the political front, the Joint Special Envoy for the UN and the League of Arab States for the Syrian Crisis, Kofi Annan, arrived in Moscow today for two days of talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Annan has repeatedly called on the parties to abide by the six-point peace plan he presented several months ago to end the crisis. The plan calls for an end to violence, access for humanitarian agencies to provide relief to those in need, the release of detainees, the start of inclusive political dialogue, and unrestricted access to the country for the international media.