In 2006, the World Health Oranization released a study, estimating that the number of deaths in the then 3-year conflict was 200,000. Now John Holmes, the UN undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, estimates the number of deaths has risen to 300,000.

Queried by reporters, Holmes said the estimate of 300,000 dead ”is not a very scientifically based figure” because there have been no new mortality studies in Darfur, but ”it’s a reasonable extrapolation.”

”What I’m saying is if that figure of 200,000 was anything like right in 2006, then that figure must be much higher now,” he said.

The Sudanese government, however, decried his statements, estimating that the number of deaths is 10,000.

Sudanese Ambassador Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamed countered that ”in our own calculations, the total number does not exceed 10,000.”

He said his government counts only people killed in fighting, saying there are no dead from malnutrition and starvation ”because in Darfur there is no epidemics, no starvations.”