I don't know what to say

Most days I can't bear to look at Darfur. I look away, not wanting to be reminded of a level of suffering I can't imagine and have no wish to. And what's more, every time I look back it seems worse. The Scotsman (Scotland, UK) for the past few days bring me back to a type of despair, a sense of helplessness in the face of horror, almost like one of those nightmares where something is chasing you but now matter how fast you try to run, your legs move slower and slower.

On Tuesday, the story was that

[t]he United Nations yesterday suspended humanitarian operations in the south Darfur region of Sudan after gunmen killed two Save the Children workers in an ambush on an aid convoy.

It was the second fatal attack on Save the Children staff in Darfur in the past two months. The UK charity immediately suspended its operations in the area while African Union troops began an investigation. ...

The attack, on Sunday, reflects the worsening violence in the Darfur region, where Save the Children says up to 300,000 people may have lost their lives as a result of violence. ...

Assane Ba, a spokesman for the AU [African Union], said ceasefire violations were on the increase, with 13 in September and 54 documented since the beginning of October. ...

Sudanese authorities hope to sign a peace deal with rebels from the region in the New Year following a fragile ceasefire brokered on 9 November. ...

Expectations of a breakthrough were low before rebels walked out of talks in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, with both sides trading accusations of ceasefire breaches.

As a result of the renewed violence and the suspension of aid programs, 160,000 people in south Darfur are now cut off from aid from the UN's World Food Program - that number being in addition to the 200,000 in north Darfur who aid can't reach because of the instability in the region.

As the violence continues, the threat of greater violence increases, intensifying what the UN describes as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, one marked by attacks on black African farmers by the Sudanese government and its "janjaweed" Arab militias that the US has labeled as genocide. It is, in fact, "a timebomb waiting to explode" in the words of international observers cited by today's Scotsman, who say that the Sudanese government is pouring arms into the region, preparing for a major assault.

The African Union said that it was a question of when, and not if, fighting would start. The prospect of such an escalation in violence in the region has alarmed aid agencies who are already struggling to cope with the tide of refugees driven from their homes by the fighting. ...

[T]he warning from the African Union suggests that the Sudanese government intends to step up its campaign against rebel forces in Darfur, placing the lives of millions more people at risk.

Nigerian Major-General Festus Okonkwo, attending the African Union-sponsored peace talks in Nigeria, said it was clear from the military build-up over the last two weeks that Khartoum intended to fight on. ...

"Some members of the international community have started leaving the region because of the speed and intensity of build-up of forces by the government and the reciprocal build-up by SLA and JEM [rebel groups] in Labado and Mahajiriya, which are seen by many as the main battleground."

Isn't there a point, isn't there a time, and dammit, isn't that point and time here and now, when you look at what's around you, when you look at the hunger and death and fear and blood and exhaustion and pain and cruelty - when you stop and say "What is worth this?" I don't care which side you're on, isn't there some moment when you say "My cause is not worth the price?" When comes that moment, when comes the labored breath that simply says "Enough!" and turns to burying the dead?

That's the question I ask both sides now - is it worth it? Or, more exactly, how can it be worth it?