Water means peace for Darfur?

The discovery of a huge underground lake in Darfur may help bring ease one of the causes of conflict in the desert region of southern Sudan according to scientists. Researchers hope to drill at least 1,000 wells in the Darfur region and pump the long-hidden water. Hopefully it will hasten the end of an brutal and largely ignored conflict that has left hundreds of thousands dead and millions displaced.

"Much of the unrest in Darfur and the misery is due to water shortages," said geologist Farouk El-Baz, director of the Boston University Centre for Remote Sensing, told the Associated Press. By studying satellite and radar images, Mr Baz and other Boston University researchers identified possible streams running from a 5,000-year-old lake that is now obscured by the sands of northern Darfur. The lake occupied an area of nearly 12,000.

Scientists plan to identify the best location for drilling the first wells. Egypt has pledged to drill the first 20, and the UN mission in Sudan also plans to drill several more for use by its peacekeeping forces, the university said. In a recent article for the Washington Post, the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-Moon, cited the lack of water as one of the reasons behind the conflict. Camel herders replenished themselves at the farmers' wells and grazed on their lands. The farmers responded by erecting fences amid fears that their land would be ruined by passing herds.

Darfur activists warned, however, that the discovery of water would not relieve victims of "the politics of a genocidal regime".Eric Reeves, a professor at Smith College in Massachusetts, told the Boston Globe: "What you see is not simply a competition for the scarce resources of Darfur. If we want to look at the violence in Darfur, we don't look underground, we look at the political realities that exist today."

Given the rate of climate change across the world, access to water will become a source of conflict, especially in more unstable regions. It is not inconceivable that Israel’s next war with Syria and Jordan could be over access to the River Jordan. I don’t hold out too much hope that peace will come to Darfur anytime soon but it is worth a try.