This is a blog in three parts (click for part one and part two). Here's the final instalment.

In October 2006, hundreds of displaced Darfuris - a stream of tattered humanity - started arriving in the far west of Raja Country in South Sudan. Burned out of their villages in the western uplands of South Darfur, they had endured persistent assaults, food and water shortages, and family members giving birth or dying of old age along the way. All this to reach the relative comforts of the South.

What is likely to be more important to these people now: justice for past crimes, the hope of peace in the future or the aid that keeps them alive in the here and now?

Some have argued that the arrest warrant issued for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes in Darfur is cavalier, even reckless. Does the expulsion of aid agencies right after the ICC announcement earlier this month prove it's too much, too soon?

Khartoum has reacted predictably, accusing aid groups of passing information to the ICC. Perhaps they haven't done so directly in response to a formal request. But it may well have happened via informal channels in Sudan and beyond, including former staff members who worked in Darfur.

After all, these organisations have been on the ground for years with a large national staff working closely with those who've suffered. If anyone knows the truth and has credibility, it's individuals who have worked for these agencies on the ground.

The Sudanese regime has clearly been looking for an opportunity to remove external actors from Darfur, or at least the ones it regards as not "friendly" to its interests. But why some agencies and not others?

I suspect the decisions were made for practical reasons. Firstly, there must have been a calculation of how many aid groups could be removed without provoking excessive international pressure, or a reduction of the support the government enjoys from Arab League countries and the Chinese.

Secondly it was probably a question of removing agencies seen as particularly troublesome - those that were too British or American (nations that have been particularly critical over Darfur), together with MSF, which has been, well, too much like MSF.

So is there anything positive that could come out of this episode, beyond the fact that international humanitarian staff will be sitting safely at home rather than in the rather less secure dust of Darfur where their national staff and former beneficiaries remain? I find little.

Some might harbour the forlorn hope that the ICC's move is part of an elaborate strategy designed to force the international community to do take action over Darfur.

If so, it's not clear what might be. Sanctions are never uniformly supported, and history suggests they hurt ordinary people not governments. There's little hope for military intervention and even less that such a move would be successful.

Peace negotiations are under threat more than ever - one rebel group has already pulled out of talks with the government because of the aid agency expulsions.

The international community is at a loss over how to protect the people of Darfur inside Darfur. Perhaps it should take them out of there and protect them elsewhere? Europe anyone?

In the meantime, the Sudanese government will mull over which organisations it can kick out next, until the only ones that remain are suitably pliant and docile.

Human rights activists will look to past rights violations. Peace negotiators will look to the future and how to prevent more abuses. And, somewhere in the middle, humanitarian actors will try to plug the gaps in the aid operation and keep people alive long enough to see that future.

These three strands are intimately connected, and somehow they need to move forward together.

The ICC claims its move to arrest Bashir is a much-needed step on the tortuous road to peace and security in Darfur. Yet, even if it's right, one thing is certain: more people will die now because of this action.

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