SUDAN-FOOD: UN Gets Clearance to Fly Relief Supplies to Sudan

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

NAIROBI, Aug 11 1996 (IPS) - After a long delay, the Sudanese government has given the green light to the United Nations to fly in relief supplies to thousands of people affected by floods in south-eastern Sudan.

The UN-funded Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS) said Friday it had been requesting emergency flight clearance from Khartoum since June, when some 15,000 people were reported to have been stranded by unprecedented floods in the Pochalla, on the border with Ethiopia.

Approval was granted last week in a letter to Yasushi Akashi, the UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs. In the letter, Khartoum’s permanent representative to the U.N. explained that: “the primary and main concern of my government is to ensure a safe and prompt provision of humanitarian assistance to the affected population of all the southern Sudanese citizens.”

The clearance “is a welcome development,” said Pierce Gerety, OLS Coordinator and UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) chief of operations. “We understand that flood waters in the area have persisted and food reserves as well as food crops have been largely destroyed.”

“Reports from the area say that up to 25,000 people are now badly affected by flooding and more rains are expected in the Ethiopian Highlands this month,” he said. “From what we know, the main needs are for food, fishing equipment, shelter materials and medicines.”

Gerety added that a team planned to fly to Pochalla on Sunday to assess the needs and begin deliveries.

“While we now have clearance to fly to Pochalla, access to the people in greatest need will be a challenge. Flood waters have made ground travel difficult, and people have to wade for hours through deep water and mud to reach Pochalla from surrounding areas,” said Gerety.

Pochalla has been under the control of the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) since March. The United Nations had been assessing relief needs in Pochalla up until then — while it was still held by the government.

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) will coordinate the first OLS emergency airlifts to Pochalla, beginning with an assessment team, WFP relief food, and medical supplies provided by Unicef and Medecins sans Frontiers (MSF).

The OLS is a consortium of UN agencies and some 40 international and indigenous non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that provide emergency relief and rehabilitation for an estimated 3.1 million war-affected civilians in southern Sudan.

The WFP, which provides emergency food aid and manages air operations on behalf of the UN and NGOs working under the OLS umbrella, resumed food deliveries to some 700,000 people facing starvation in Southern Sudan in late July for the first time in 10 months.

In September 1995, the Sudanese government stopped the agency from using large aircraft, alleging that arms rather than food were being ferried to the rebels in the South. The WFP denied the charge.

In early June, WFP Director Catherine Bertini had warned that thousands could starve to death in southern Sudan. “We are already seeing stick-like legs, bloated bellies and hair that is taking on the reddish hue, indicating serious malnutrition,” she said.

Bertini warned that if food shortages persisted, there was a real danger of gradual and widespread starvation as occurred in 1987, when more than 300,000 people died from famine-related diseases in southern Sudan, prompting the United Nations to launch the OLS in 1988.

But since its formation, the OLS has run into a series of obstacles as both the government and the SPLA have been using food aid as a political weapon in the civil war, which began over 13 years ago.

In July, SPLA leader John Garang also appealed for relief aid when he visited Norway, Germany, Switzerland and Italy. He said the food crisis in the South required immediate humanitarian attention from the international community.

Dr Justine Yac, in charge of SPLA’s department of health, said the situation was particularly appalling in Northern Gogrial, located in Bahr el Ghazal province and a stomping ground for Arab Murahileen militias from Northern Sudan.

“The population is wandering in the bushes with virtually nothing to eat, because of the activities of government militias who raid villages for cattle … and sheer destruction of the area,” Yac wrote in the latest edition of the ‘SPLA Update’ newsletter.

Survivors are living on green leaves, when they can get them, and on roots, Yac said. “The people have been looted of their livestock and granaries destroyed. The villages of Pakor, Akat, Turalei, Maper, Agok, Thiekthou have been devastated.”

According to Yac, the bulk of the people displaced from the six villages have moved to Panthou town where the WFP began airdropping food rations last month.

WFP said large quantities of relief food were urgently needed in Southern Sudan as June to August is the ‘hunger gap’ period, when local food stocks are at their lowest and farmers await the harvest.

The current heavy rainy season makes dirt airstrips unsuitable for landing and renders overland transport virtually impossible. Airdrops are often the only means available to WFP and other aid agencies to deliver food to entire areas.