Darfur Lake Is Dried Up, Draining Hope

Hopes for an enormous underground lake discovered recently in Darfur might supply enough water to end starvation and violence in the area were dimmed by a second opinion from  a French geologist. The area receives too little rain and has the wrong type of rocks for water storage, said a specialist in mineral and water exploration: the lake probably dried up thousands of years ago.

The lake, discovered by Boston researchers earlier this week, was most likely filled with water between 5,000 and 25,000 years ago. But the specialist contends there is enough water elsewhere in Darfur to help rebuild the economy and end the bloody warfare that has killed 200,000 Darfuris and forced 2 million out of their homes since 2003. (More genocide stories.)