SUDAN-FOOD: Rebel Leader Appeals For Emergency Aid

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

NAIROBI, Sep 26 1997 (IPS) - Famine has hit parts of Sudan as a result of low rainfall this year, prompting rebel leader John Garang to appeal for international food aid for the affected areas.

Garang, leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), told journalists here that an “acute food shortage” had been caused in southern Sudan by the “El Nino effect”.

El Nino is a warming of the eastern tropical Pacific that occurs every few years, disrupting weather patterns. Scientists say it has been moving towards Africa, where it causes heavy rainfall in some cases and drought in others.

Garang, who said his forces control the whole of southern Sudan, urged the international community to rush in food, medicine and blankets to alleviate the situation. “There has been no rain in Sudan this year. The situation is very bad indeed,” he told a press conference late Thursday.

Deng Dong Ring, who is SPLA’s London spokesperson, told IPS that the food situation in the south was in fact worrying. “People survive on edible green leaves,” he said.

Ring, who spent two months in southern Sudan on a fact- finding tour, could not, however, provide estimates of the number of people affected. “What I can say right now is that the whole of southern Sudan is affected. There has been no rain in most parts of the region this year,” he said.

The lucky ones depend on barter trade with Uganda, he added. “They take their cows to Uganda, sell them and use the proceeds to buy food and take back to southern Sudan.”

This is not the first time hunger has hit southern Sudan. More than 300,000 people died there from famine-related diseases in 1987, prompting the United Nations to launch Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS) in 1988 to avoid a recurrence of that catastrophe.

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 14 years ago.

Riny said the government had refused to give aircraft permission to fly to the SPLA-controlled towns of Rumbek, Tonj, Yirol and Yei. In a report made available to IPS on Friday, the OLS said it had also failed to receive flight clearance for other southern areas: Ajiep, Akak, Thiekthon, Akon, Wunrok, Mayen Abun, Warrap, Panyagor and Yomciir.

Despite the difficulties, the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) was able to deliver a total of 353.26 metric tonnes of food to 80,824 beneficiaries in southern Sudan between Sep 1-6, according to the OLS.

In August, FAO’s Mwite Rukandema had told journalists here that there was plenty food in Sudan but that reaching the needy, especially in remote parts of the country, posed logistical problems for the government.

Rukandema, who is based at the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) headquarters in Rome, had said that “the overall food outlook in Sudan for 1997 has so far been generally satisfactory … although the situation in some provinces remains highly precarious.”

According to the FAO, six states in the west, south and northeast of the country had a combined food deficit of around 600,000 tonnes of cereals. While part of the deficit may be met through normal internal trade, prospects for an easy flow of supplies are not that good, especially in two of the six states — North Kordofan and North Darfur.

“In those areas where accessibility poses the greatest problem, a large number of persons are bound to experience hardships,” according to the FAO’s Early Warning System, launched here by Rukandema in August. “The situation would be worse in the southern states where economic activity has been adversely affected by many years of civil war.

“In this part of the country, some 2.6 million war-affected and displaced persons would need emergency food aid estimated at 52,176 tonnes, of which cereals would account for 39,000 tonnes.”

Garang appealed to neighbouring nations such as Kenya to start sending relief to southern Sudan. “We have an African saying that charity begins at home, so I appeal to the authorities in Kenya to help before the international community steps in,” he said.

He also rejected claims by Khartoum that relief organisations had been engaging in illegal activities like transporting weapons and ammunition to the SPLA. “This is a Khartoum government propaganda,” he said. “Relief supplies are transported through Kenya. And, no ammunition is put on them.”

The rebel leader said he hoped that the conflict in the south would be resolved soon, now that the Sudan government had resumed peace talks that were stalled three years ago. The two sides met here on Monday and agreed to meet again on Oct. 28

Garang said the war in Sudan was inflicting untold suffering on the people of the south. “And we understand that the war is costing Khartoum government at least 2.5 million dollars a day,” he said.

More than one million people have died in southern Sudan since the SPLA launched its bush war in 1983, demanding greater autonomy for the predominantly non-Muslim South — home to 35 percent of the 30 million Sudanese — from the Arabised Muslim North.