DEVELOPMENT-SUDAN: Death, Diseases Stalk Children

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

NAIROBI, Jun 9 1998 (IPS) - Death, disease and acute food shortages are stalking hundreds of thousands of severely malnourished children in southern Sudan’s Bahr el Ghazal region, according to Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF).

The international medical organisation said in a statement made available to IPS Tuesday that 16 children have died at its feeding centres in Ajiep, Bahr el Ghazal, during the past two weeks.

“Nine of the 1,459 children died in supplementary feeding centres and seven of the 63 children died in the intensive feeding centres,” said Marc Hermant, MSF head of Mission in southern Sudan.

“Over half of the children attending our feeding centres are not improving, because the distribution of food to the general population is inadequate. If sufficient food is not distributed quickly and widely, the population will face a disaster. We need to avert further crisis,” Hermant said in the statement.

“The nutritional situation in Bahr el Ghazal, where we work, is seriously deteriorating,” said Hermant.

He said MSF recorded over the last 12 weeks, a six-fold rise in the numbers of children in six supplementary feeding centres in Bahr el Ghazal.

During the week of Mar. 22, a total of 808 children were registered in six centres in Bahr el Ghazal, according to MSF. By May 31, the total number of children had increased to 5,037. In Leer town, Western Bahr el Ghazal, 259 children were admitted in the first days of the feeding centre, 128 of whom were severely malnourished.

Since May 31, 174 children with less than 60 percent of their body weight for their height have been registered in the intensive feeding centres in Bahr el Ghazal.

“There is a serious deterioration in the nutritional status of the vulnerable population of southern Sudan – suplementary and therapeutic food for the severely malnourished must go hand in hand with enough general food distribution to enable entire families to survive,” Hermant said.

“Otherwise, the supplementary food is shared between the families and the vulnerable continue to suffer.”

MSF, as part of U.N. Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS), says it is concerned that the current capacity of OLS is not sufficient to meet the needs of the 930,000 vulnerable southern Sudanese. OLS was established in 1988 to avert a famine similar to the one which claimed 300,000 lives in southern Sudan in 1987.

“Right now, OLS is assisting by air and road from Kenya, Uganda and el Obeid in northern Sudan. Five hundred and ninety- five thousand of these people are in rebel-held areas of Bahr el Ghazal,” said Philip Clarke of the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) office in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum.

“The remaining populations, including 33,000 people in government areas of Bahr el Ghazal, are being assisted by road, barge and air from northern Sudan,” he said this week.

As outlined in the 1997 OLS Annual Needs Assessment which was conducted throughout 1998, WFP says it is currently targeting a total of approximately 2.2 million people for food assistance in Sudan, of which 1.7 million live in both the government and rebel- held areas of southern Sudan.

WFP began urgent food deliveries from el Obeid, northern Sudan, to Bahr el Ghazal on Jun. 6. From Lokichokio, Kenya, WFP says it sends an average of eight to 10 flights each day to southern Sudan, which requires 160 metric tonnes of food and 130 litres of fuel.

“It is critical that we diversify our supply routes to guarantee that food gets to the needy as quickly as possible,” said Clarke. El Obeid, a government town, is relatively close to the Bahr el Ghazal region, making air transport less expensive.

WFP says it also has a solid pipeline of food available for airlifting after 4,300 tonnes of cereal were purchased in northern Sudan, much of which has already been transported to el Obeid in preparation for the airlift operation.

The agency is urging donors to provide prompt donations for its appeal for 65.8 million dollars to support its emergency programmes for all of Sudan for the next 12 months. Only 15.4 million dollars has been received to date, it said.

Without a significant increase in capacity coupled with an increased daily ration of food, there is a risk that little impact will be made on the current catastrophe in southern Sudan.

Areas such as Bahr el Ghazal and Western Upper Nile, also in southern Sudan, have already suffered two consecutive poor harvests and continue to face conflict, hence increased displacement. The time frame for seed planting has been extended, due to late rains.

According to Hermant, reports from Bahr el Ghazal suggest that in certain regions, poor food stocks have put stress on the traditional coping mechanisms, which usually help the population survive the yearly hunger gap.

It is crucial that sufficient food is distributed to sustain families in the period up to and beyond the next harvest, and seeds and tools must be in place before the onset of heavy rains, he said.

Emergency non-food needs are also becoming increasingly acute as populations become weaker. Malnutrition rates and the incident of diarrhoea and other water-borne diseases are rising and there is an urgent need for the provision of emergency health, nutrition, seeds and tools, clean water and other relief and shelter items such as blankets, cooking pots and mosquito netting.

Another aid agency operating in Bahr el Ghazal, the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), says it has received approximately 15 million US Dollars against a total appeal for Sudan of 33.6 million US Dollars for 1998.

In Bahr el Ghazal alone, Unicef says it immediately requires 4.5 million US Dollars to fulfill its role as lead agency and to provide health, nutrition and household food security assistance.

Bahr el Ghazal has been the scene of fierce fighting between government forces and the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) in the past few months. The SPLA, founded in 1983, is fighting for self-determination for southern Sudan, where 35 percent of the country’s 30 million people live.