No amount of humanitarian assistance can protect people from being attacked.

We receive reports now on a daily basis from our own people on the ground in Darfur on widespread atrocities and grave violations of human rights against the civilian population.

Increasingly gang violence and organized crime, together with climate change-driven natural disasters, are displacing more people as wars are fewer on the continent and political violence has decreased considerably, the NRC has decided to treat this as a humanitarian crisis.

Although we have do not have adequate access to all parts of Darfur we do fortunately have humanitarian personnel, including staff from my own office, in each of the three provincial capitals of Darfur.

Secondly, the Government of Sudan should commit to the disarmament and control of the Janjaweed militia and ensure that the targeting of civilians ceases immediately.

We need better coordination on the international side, just as they need better and more effective efforts on the Somali side. We have too many reconstruction and development assistance plans.

Consistently, from the Hezbollah heartland, my message was that Hezbollah must stop this cowardly blending ... among women and children," . "I heard they were proud because they lost very few fighters and that it was the civilians bearing the brunt of this. I don't think anyone should be proud of having many more children and women dead than armed men.