Indian Ocean temperatures and Darfur

The cause is hidden; the effect is visible to all.

Ovid

In an opinion piece for The Washington Post, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon wrote, "Amid the diverse social and political causes, the Darfur conflict began as an ecological crisis, arising at least in part from climate change. "

UN statistics show that rainfall declined some 40 per cent over the past two decades, as a rise in Indian Ocean temperatures disrupted monsoons.

However, climate change may be one of the causes of the Darfur crisis, but to consider it the single root cause could obscure other important factors and hamper the search for solutions.

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