Using satellite radar imagery, scientists from the USA’s Boston University discovered that the 30,750-square-kilometre lake – an area equivalent to the size of Belgium – would have held 2,530 cubic kilometres of water, which possibly seeped through the sandstone substrate to accumulate as groundwater.

If water is found underground, it could help to ease tensions between nomadic Arabs and ethnic African farmers, which the UN says have been aggravated by the scramble for scarce resources in the arid sub-Saharan region, and have escalated into a civil war that has claimed an estimated 200,000 victims and displaced millions.

Dr Farouk El-Baz, director of the Boston University Center for Remote Sensing, said: ‘Access to fresh water is essential for refugee survival, will help the peace process, and provides the necessary resources for the much-needed economic development in Darfur.’

El-Baz and his team have received backing from the Sudanese government to drill 1,000 wells in Darfur to search for water reserves.

However, French geologist Alain Gachet, a pioneer of the use of satellite radar images to find underground resources, believes that the chances of finding water are slim, as it’s likely that the lake would have dried up thousands of years ago, and the rock is of the wrong type to store large volumes of groundwater. He added that there are sufficient reserves buried elsewhere in Darfur to ease shortages in the region.

October 2007