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Despite Sudanese government promises to disarm the militia, the attacks continue. Last week militiamen looted and burned six villages in southern Darfur and attacked a camp in the center of the region. The U.N. says government soldiers and police officers often fail to intervene to prevent the slaughter. In some places Janjaweed fighters are incorporated into the security forces meant to protect civilians. The Janjaweed's latest tactic is to encircle camps of displaced Darfurians and attack any who venture out to collect water or firewood. Women are often sent to do those chores because they will be raped rather than killed. The government, which is encouraging people in the camps to return home, dismisses the violence as nothing more than banditry. "It's armed robbery like elsewhere in Africa," says Eltigani Salih Fediel, Sudan's Deputy Foreign Minister.

After months of internal debate, the Bush Administration is beginning to pressure the Sudanese government to halt the slaughter in Darfur. Secretary of State Colin Powell is scheduled to join U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on a visit to Khartoum and Darfur this week to demand that Sudan's government allow humanitarian access and rein in the Janjaweed. The U.S. is quietly working up an initial U.N. resolution that would pave the way for a peacekeeping force, probably drawn from African states.

But many wonder why it took so long for aid agencies to provide assistance and for Western governments to lean on Khartoum to stop the thugs. Aid workers say privately that they were focused on countries like Iraq and did not realize the extent of the catastrophe taking place in Sudan until a few months ago. Once they did, it took months to get money from donors to underwrite an emergency effort. Another stumbling block has been the U.S. effort to secure a peace agreement between Khartoum and rebels in the south, where a separate conflict has killed at least 2 million people since 1983.

The tragedy is that for thousands of Sudanese it may be too late. "That men, women and children uprooted by the war and ethnic cleansing will die in enormous numbers is no longer in doubt due to advanced stages of malnutrition and disease that cannot be reversed," says USAID's Winter. The final death toll will depend largely on "whether the Sudanese government will finally make saving lives in Darfur the priority rather than a chit for negotiation." In such a high-stakes game, few expect that to happen. --Reported by Massimo Calabresi/Washington and Ilona Eveleens/Kailek