What seemed inevitable just 48 hours ago – an imminent U.S. missile attack on Syrian targets in response to an alleged chemical attack that reportedly killed hundreds of Syrian citizens – stalled Thursday as the justification for military action faced increasing questioning both here and abroad.

Growing calls by both Republican and Democratic lawmakers for consultations with, if not formal authorisation by, Congress before Obama takes any military action have raised the potential political costs on Capitol Hill if Obama proceeds on his own.

While the administration continues to express certainty that the Syrian government was responsible for the alleged Aug. 21 attack, the Associated Press, quoting U.S. intelligence officials, reported Thursday that such a case fell short of a “slam dunk” – a reference to then-CIA director George Tenet’s mistaken declaration that President Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the run-up to the Iraq War.

Some officials cited in the story said they could not entirely rule out the possibility that rebels were responsible for the attack on a Damascus suburb – as alleged by the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad."Simply lashing out with military force under the banner of 'doing something' will not secure our interests in Syria."
-- Representative Adam Smith

According to AP, officials could not tie Assad or his inner circle to any directive ordering the use of chemical weapons or even to foreknowledge of the attack, suggesting that the decision may have made by lower-ranking military officers or a rogue commander.

The administration has scheduled a telephone conference call with members of Congress for Thursday evening, but officials said the briefing would not include classified information that could confirm the nature of the attack or who was responsible. A White House spokesman said the administration still hopes to release an unclassified intelligence assessment by the weekend.

Meanwhile, the administration faced other problems overseas, not least of which was the refusal earlier this week of the Arab League to explicitly endorse a military attack and the appeals by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and his special envoy for Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, to await the findings of U.N. inspectors who have been in Syria this week investigating the site of the alleged attack, taking testimony and blood samples from its victims. Ban said Thursday the inspectors would not leave Syria until Saturday.

On Thursday, the British parliament voted against military intervention in Syria, leading Prime Minister David Cameron to say his country would not join the action in which he had previously pledged to participate, along with the leaders of France and Turkey.

Britain has long been Washington’s closest military ally, and most analysts consider it inconceivable that Obama would launch a strike, however limited, without allied and especially British support.

Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel, who during the administration’s deliberations late last week reportedly opposed striking, told reporters in Brunei Thursday that any action against Damascus would require “international collaboration”.

However, it appears now that whatever hopes the administration had earlier this week of carrying out “limited” military strikes for two or three days against Syrian targets as early as this weekend have dissipated.

It was widely believed that Obama had hoped to complete military operations against Syria before he left Tuesday Sept. 3 for the Group of 20 (G20) Summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, that begins Thursday Sept. 5.

Most analysts here consider it highly unlikely that he would want to carry out an attack while being hosted by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Assad’s most-important international backer and Washington’s co-chair in long-stalled negotiations between Assad and opposition forces to end the civil war in Syria.

Moscow has threatened to veto any resolution at the U.N. Security Council that would authorise military action against Damascus, and U.S.-Russian relations are already at their lowest point since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

But growing domestic opposition to even limited strikes of the kind Obama suggested during a PBS interview Wednesday he would pursue may be more decisive.

As of Thursday morning, 140 members of the House of Representatives had signed a letter calling on Obama to gain Congressional approval before taking ay military action, according to the “Hill” newspaper.

“Engaging our military in Syria when no direct threat to the United States exists and without prior congressional authorisation would violate the separation of powers that is clearly delineated in the Constitution,” said the letter, which also charged that Obama’s participation in the NATO campaign against Libya in 2011 was unconstitutional because it lacked authorisation.

Over the last two days, a number of influential Democrats from both houses have also privately expressed serious reservations to the White House about attacking Syria, noting that even limited strikes could draw the United States into another Middle Eastern civil war.

“Simply lashing out with military force under the banner of ‘doing something’ will not secure our interests in Syria,” noted Washington Representative Adam Smith, the senior Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee.

Recent public opinion polls suggest strong opposition to military action at the grassroots level. A Reuters/Ipsos poll taken Aug. 19-23 found that only a quarter of respondents said they would support U.S. military intervention if Assad used chemical weapons against the civilian population.

A Huffington Post/YouGov survey taken earlier this week found the same percent would support air strikes to aid Syrian rebels, while 41 percent were opposed. Thirty-one percent agreed with the statement that the U.S. has a responsibility to prevent Syria from using chemical weapons against rebels, while 38 percent disagreed.

Meanwhile, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the only independent international non-governmental organisation that has provided statistics regarding casualties resulting from the alleged attack and which reported Aug. 24 that three hospitals near the affected area had received 3,600 patients displaying neurotoxic symptoms, of whom 355 died, issued a formal statement Thursday “warn[ing] that its information could not be used as evidence to certify the precise origin” of the attack or designate “the perpetrators”.

It added that its previous statement should not “be used as a substitute for the [U.N.’s] investigation or as a justification for military action.”

In another statement released Thursday, Amnesty International said “the best course of action would be for the United Nations to complete its investigation into this latest outrage and for the United Nations Security Council to refer all evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity from this and other incidents to the International Criminal Court.”

The Council could consider other measures, it said, including “targeted economic sanctions and the deployment of international human rights monitors”.

Patients, doctors and international aid groups are calling on donors and governments to support measures that would make treatment of drug-resistant tuberculosis more effective and accessible.

The demands are being made amidst the recent or imminent approval of two new drugs, bedaquiline and delamanid. Advocates say the drugs present an historic opportunity to tackle the notoriously difficult-to-treat disease.

“As we know with all infectious diseases, we need to seize this opportunity before an airborne infectious disease gets too out of control,” Dr. Jennifer Cohn, a policy advisor with Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), an aid group, told IPS.

On Monday, MSF released a manifesto, signed by TB patients and their doctors in 23 countries around the world, noting that “after close to five decades of insufficient research and development into TB … Research is urgently required to determine the best way to use these new drugs so that treatment can be made shorter and more effective.”

It also warns that “If measures to tackle MDR-TB are not immediately expanded, rates of the disease will continue to increase worldwide, and a historic opportunity to improve abysmal cure rates will have been squandered.”

The call to action comes on the heels of a World Health Organisation (WHO) statement on the wide spread of drug-resistant tuberculosis – and warnings over an anticipated funding gap of 1.6 billion dollars needed to both identify new cases and combat existing strains.

An additional 3.2 billion dollars, according to WHO estimates, could be provided by governments. If the combined 4.8 billion dollars is funded, treatment could be provided for 17 million TB and drug-resistant TB patients.

“We have gained a lot of ground in TB control through international collaboration, but it can easily be lost if we do not act now,” Dr. Margaret Chan, the WHO director-general, said in a statement.

Twenty pills a day

While the overall incidence of tuberculosis has fallen in recent years, drug-resistant strains have increased. In a 2009 resolution to the World Health Assembly, the WHO noted that the highest levels of multidrug resistance reported in the agency’s lobal report “pose a threat to global public health security”.

The spread of resistant strains is particularly alarming because their long and difficult treatment process makes them significantly more difficult to cure than traditional strains.

The MSF manifesto makes reference to regimens that require up to 20 pills a day along with daily injections that make it painful to sit or lie down. The treatment is also known for strong side effects, including severe nausea and even deafness.

MSF is calling for universal access to diagnosis and treatment for patients suffering from drug-resistant tuberculosis, as well as the development of “more tolerable” drug regimens, and additional financial support from international donors and governments for research.

Perhaps the most serious obstacle to filling the 1.6-billion-dollar funding gap is the massive federal budget cuts that went into effect here in Washington in early March. These are slated to cut deeply into development assistance, including international health.

For instance, the United States will reduce its contribution to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria alone by 300 million dollars, according to figures revealed by Secretary of State John Kerry.

“The United States is the number one donor to the Global Fund, and the Global Fund is the number one donor for treating multi-drug-resistant TB,” Cohn says. “So budget cuts are definitely a concern.”

Still, she notes, one of the biggest challenges lies in fostering cooperation among manufacturers.

“We need to see manufacturers engaging in trials on the different [anti-TB] drugs together, to determine their efficacy and to develop a regimen that works as strongly and safely as possible,” she says. “Unfortunately, we have not seen a lot of progress on this.”

Drug reservations

One of the drugs being lauded in the manifesto is bedaquiline. But some watchdog groups here are sounding alarms about the drug’s safety.

“I don’t have any problem with looking for more drugs to treat disease that is a terrible problem in many countries, but it has to be done very carefully and cautiously,” Dr. Sidney Wolfe, the director of the Health Research Group at Public Citizen, a Washington-based advocacy group, told IPS.

In a letter to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration sent in December, Public Citizen strongly opposed any accelerated approval of bedaquiline, noting that the drug has been shown to be highly dangerous in clinical trials. The letter referenced findings that patients taking bedaquiline in addition to standard TB treatment were five times likelier to die than those who took a placebo.

Despite these concerns, bedaquiline was approved in December.

“There are two possibilities,” Wolfe says. “Either [MSF] didn’t read the report [about the five-fold increase in death rate], or they did and decided that since the FDA approved it, it must be ok. Either one of these explanations is unacceptable. How can you be enthusiastic about a drug that is killing so many people?”

Cohn at MSF stresses the need to be vigilant about any new medication, and notes that the drug will now go through an additional phase of testing.

“Any new drug that comes to market we want to watch closely,” she says. “We are looking forward to data that will tell us more about the Phase 3 side effects of bedaquiline.”

Civil society opposition here has strengthened against a U.S.-proposed free trade zone that would include some dozen countries around the Pacific Rim.

As negotiators head into a 16th round of talks this week in Singapore, around 400 organisations are urging the U.S. Congress to demand greater transparency in the proceedings.

On Monday, the first day of the negotiations, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), a humanitarian group, called on President Barack Obama’s administration to “end its stall tactics and revise its proposals for what otherwise promises to be the most harmful trade deal ever for access to medicines in developing countries.”Look at who has a seat at the table, with the public shut out and more than 600 corporate lobbyists...

The Singapore talks will extend through Mar. 13. Critics say civil society and other critical stakeholders have been systematically shut out of the negotiations, supplanted by corporate interests.

The proposal, known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), currently comprises 11 countries (a 12th, Japan, is also contemplating joining). But the Obama administration has been clear that if passed, the zone would be open-ended in terms of future expansion.

That broad geographical sweep, together with the simultaneous negotiation of a lengthy but highly secretive list of contentious issues not necessarily related to trade, is leading critics to warn that the scope of any pending agreement could negatively impact on nearly half the globe.

And with the Obama administration now saying it wants to wrap up the negotiations by October, some TPP negotiators are reportedly worried that some of the most controversial issues up for discussion are being pushed to the very end in an attempt to “run out the clock”.

According to a new brief released by MSF, U.S. TPP negotiators are pushing for rules that would “enhance patent and data protections for pharmaceutical companies, dismantle public health safeguards enshrined in international law and obstruct price-lowering generic competition for medicines”.

The result could be restrictions on access to affordable generic medicines for “millions” of people.

Judit Rius Sanjuan, U.S. manager for MSF’s Access Campaign, says her office heard that the last time the TPP negotiations included substantive talks on access to medicines was a year ago. At that time, nearly all negotiating partners reportedly rejected a draft chapter on intellectual property rights, which includes the patent provisions.

And while the White House has stated that it would be resubmitting a revised chapter on this issue, Sanjuan says it appears that access to medicines is once again not on the agenda this week in Singapore.

“We are hearing from other negotiating teams that the pressure to finalise this agreement by October is rising, and they fear that if there is not more time for substantive discussion, this chapter could stand,” she told IPS.

“We share the concern that this delay in presenting an alternative text is a U.S. strategy to focus instead on the less controversial chapters and leave behind debate over access to medicines. But doing so would have huge consequences for developing countries.”

In fact, imposing these types of new restrictions would run counter to previous international agreements and national legislation under which Washington has pledged to expand access to generic medicines.

Any restriction in access to such medicines would also affect the United States’ own global health goals. According to Sanjuan, generics make up some 98 percent of the medicines used by PEPFAR, the United States’ flagship anti-HIV/AIDS programme and the world’s largest.

Half the world

Global health wouldn’t be the only sector impacted by the TPP’s passage. Also on Monday, coinciding with the first day of negotiations in Singapore, around 400 groups from a broad range of backgrounds sent an open letter to the U.S. Congress opposing the abnormally secretive way in which negotiations for the trade area have been run.

“This agreement will impact on how trade and investment are conducted in the Pacific Rim for decades, yet the ramifications aren’t fully understood even by people who know about the TPP,” Arthur Stamoulis, executive director of the Washington-based Citizens Trade Campaign, an advocacy group, and an organiser of the letter, told IPS.

“This is an agreement that wouldn’t just affect the economy and sustainability in these 11 countries, but has the potential to impact the economy and environment for literally half the world.”

In lieu of official consultation, the groups are offering recommendations for draft language on issues from environmental standards and human and labour rights to financial regulation and national sovereignty. Yet the central complaint has to do with lack of oversight and transparency.

“We find it troubling that … U.S. negotiators still refuse to inform the American public what they have been proposing,” the letter states. “Shielding not only proposals but agreed-upon texts from public view until after negotiations have concluded and the pact is finalized is not consistent with democratic principles.”

The groups are calling for an opening-up of the talks to both the U.S. Congress and the public at large. They’re also urging lawmakers not to authorise new “fast track” powers that would allow the president to send Congress trade pacts for straight votes without the possibility of amendments.

Free trade advocates tend to suggest that such powers are necessary to get other countries to agree to large-scale trade agreements in the first place, but President Obama had allowed the “fast track” legislation to lapse. On Friday, however, the administration’s new trade policy agenda noted that the president would work with Congress to re-authorise that authority.

The administration has used similar concerns to rationalise the high level of secrecy surrounding the negotiations, saying that greater transparency would upset delicate discussions.

Yet critics point out that draft trade texts at this point in negotiations are often made public, including by the World Trade Organisation. Similar precedent exists from the Free Trade Area of the Americas, the trade zone agreed to in 2001 covering 34 countries, including the United States.

“There’s a real reason why the draft has been kept secret from the U.S. public – Americans wouldn’t support a huge amount of the agenda that the [Obama administration] has been pushing,” Citizens Trade’s Stamoulis says.

“If they were to negotiate an agreement that put human rights ahead of corporate profit, creating more just and sustainable social policy, the TPP could be a tool for incredible good. But if you look at who has a seat at the table, with the public shut out and more than 600 corporate lobbyists included, there is nothing to indicate that’s the deal we’re going to get.”

The United States has poured money into training the Malian military in the last several years. Above, U.S. Special Forces inspect weapons in Mali in 2007. Credit: The U.S. Army/ CC by 2.0

By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON, Jan 14 2013 (IPS)

U.S. Secretary of Defence Leon Panetta has applauded France’s surprise airstrikes on Islamist rebels in northern Mali that began late last week and continued over the weekend.

Panetta added that the U.S. government is readying plans for assistance in the ongoing operations, which scholars and human rights workers worry could continue for an extended period.

“I commend France for taking the steps that it has, and we have promised…to provide whatever assistance we can to try to help them in that effort,” Panetta told reporters on Monday.

“We have a responsibility to make sure that Al Qaeda does not establish a base for operations in North Africa and Mali,” he continued. “The effort is to try to do what is necessary to halt [rebel] advances and to try to secure some of the key cities in Mali.”

On Friday, the French government authorised airstrikes and ordered 550 French troops into Mali, where for 10 months the massive northern section of the country has been under the control of a combination of Islamists, ethnic Tuareg nationalists and criminal gangs. In March, the weak government in Bamako fell to a military coup, creating a power vacuum in the north.

Since then the international community has debated how to proceed. While France, Mali’s former colonial power, has pushed a military option, others such as the United States and the United Nations have been more cautious.

Still, in December, Washington and Paris co-sponsored a U.N. resolution that allowed for a military operation carried out by the West African grouping ECOWAS, for which the United States has offered training. (Washington is barred by law from training the Malian army until democratic elections are held.)

The ECOWAS force is not expected to be ready to enter Mali until the fall at the earliest, however. Meanwhile, Islamists reportedly linked to Al Qaeda have continued advancing against the Malian military. The French actions over the weekend sought to halt rebel attempts to take the central city of Konna, a strategy with which Washington appears to agree.

“It was clear to France and to all of us that that could not be allowed to continue,” Panetta said Monday. “That’s the reason France has engaged, and it’s the reason that we’re providing cooperation to them in that effort.”

While Panetta refused to offer details of new U.S. assistance, he did state that there would be “some limited logistical support” and “intelligence support”, as well as “some areas of airlift”.

Both the United Kingdom and Canada have stated that they would send aircraft to assist in the Mali mission. The European Union on Monday said that it would not send any combat mission to North Africa, although it publicly supported the French decision.

Already a crisis

While France’s move appears to have taken observers by surprise, the strikes are reportedly received with cautious relief by many Malians.

Mali’s interim president, Dioncounda Traore, has been pleading for an intervention. And Oumou Sall Seck, the first woman mayor elected in northern Mali, warned in an opinion piece published in late December, “Immediately reclaiming northern Mali from violent extremists must become a priority. And it can’t be done without international help, especially from key powers like America and France.”

With international action now underway, however, the mission’s exact scope is unclear. “I’m very surprised that things moved so quickly, given that there had been no movement and just a lot of talk for some time,” Susanna Wing, a professor at Haverford College who has written widely on Mali, told IPS.

“The French are clearly operating in the hope of a rout, but that is not likely to happen quickly. I’m worried this could go on and on and result in a real civilian catastrophe. It’s important to remember that there’s already a humanitarian crisis in Mali, with some 400,000 refugees having fled.”

Humanitarian groups are sounding the alarm, with Medecins Sans Frontieres and Amnesty International on Monday calling on international forces to protect civilians and health infrastructure.

While rumours surfaced on Monday of greater U.S. involvement in the fast-evolving situation in Mali, Wing says such involvement seems unlikely.

“Intelligence support, troop training – that seems reasonable, but I would be very surprised if there were anything other than that,” she says. “Since Somalia, everyone knows the U.S. isn’t going to move to put troops on the ground anytime soon.”

A more recent memory guiding many international actors, including the United States, may be that of Libya. The 2011 intervention and the resulting outflow of both weapons and fighters are widely regarded as having led directly to the subsequent spike in violence in Mali.

Piecemeal intelligence

Washington has been building up a covert network of Special Forces bases and operations in Africa over the past decade, and the sudden and dramatic decline in stability in Mali in the past year has come as a stinging surprise to many U.S. policymakers, particularly in the military.

According to new analysis published on Monday in the New York Times, Washington under President Barack Obama has spent upwards of 600 million dollars in a “sweeping effort to combat militancy” in North Africa. The effort has included a significant focus on Mali, which was regarded as a bastion of stability and where the United States has poured money into training the military.

“Has this backfired?” Wing asked. “The Malian military training that was provided was useful, but what the U.S. government was not doing was putting all the pieces together.”

For instance, she said, the Pentagon should not have been surprised by discontent within the military that led to this spring’s coup. Furthermore, despite a key move during the 1990s to integrate ethnic Tuareg into the state military, Wing noted that little effort was put into actually resolving longstanding northern grievances of underdevelopment and decentralisation.

“The U.S. was always just looking at fragments of the picture and saying they would continue to support the situation through training operations,” Wing said. “It’s piecemeal intelligence – in Mali, somehow, the whole picture was never seen.”

Members of the Murle ethnic group wait to receive food aid after attacks from a rival tribe that the U.N. says affected at least 120,000 people. Credit: Jared Ferrie /IPS

By Jared Ferrie
JUBA , Aug 25 2012 (IPS)

South Sudanese soldiers are allegedly beating and torturing civilians in the midst of a disarmament campaign in Jonglei state, and many have been unable to access justice because of a lack of prosecutors and judges, according to the United Nations and Human Rights Watch. 

“Justice and accountability in Jonglei seem to have fallen by the wayside,” HRWs Africa director, Daniel Bekele, said in a statement to South Sudanese President Salva Kiir as HRW called for him to intervene.

“Authorities should investigate the cycle of violence in Jonglei, immediately put a stop to violations committed in the course of civilian disarmament, and ensure that those responsible are held accountable.”

The alleged abuses are taking place in Pibor County, which is about 273 kilometres from Juba, South Sudan’s capital. The area is the traditional homeland of the Murle, an ethnic group involved in clashes with the Lou Nuer that lasted throughout 2011 and into early 2012.

The U.N. said more than 1,000 people were killed in Jonglei in 2011. In addition, at least 900 people – mostly Murle – were killed in attacks and counterattacks from December to February, according to a report released on May 25 by the U.N. peacekeeping mission.

In the wake of the clashes, South Sudan’s government began a statewide disarmament campaign and launched a peace process aimed at reconciliation between the Murle and Lou Nuer.

But the disarmament campaign has been plagued by allegations of abuse. On Apr. 30, a coalition of civil society groups including Washington DC-based Pact and the South Sudan Law Society released a report documenting violence during to the voluntary phase of disarmament. The report warned that violence was likely to increase as disarmament moved into the enforcement phase at the beginning of May.

Elizabeth Ashamu, a research fellow with HRW, told IPS that access to justice is a problem in much of South Sudan, which is one of the world’s poorest countries and has an underdeveloped legal system. But she said special efforts should be made to ensure that civilians have access to justice in the context of a disarmament programme being carried out by the army that has a history of committing abuses against civilians.

Ashamu said there is no civilian prosecutor or judge in Pibor County where HRW focused its research. While complainants can take their case to the police, if there is no prosecutor in the county, the case will not be heard in a local court. So victims would have to travel by land to the Jonglei state capital, Bor, where there is a prosecutor. But Bor is unreachable during the current rainy season when roads are flooded.

“It’s just physically difficult for anyone to file a complaint,” she said in an interview. “There’s also fear of coming forth and filing a complaint, which is exacerbated when the abuse is committed by soldiers.”

Between Jul. 19 and 26 Human Rights Watch researchers interviewed victims and witnesses who accused soldiers of shooting at civilians and beating them. A woman said about five soldiers beat her while she had her baby strapped to her back. One man had visible scars from ropes he said were used to tie him to a tree and sticks used to beat him. Another man said he and six others were subjected to water torture.

“They took us to a pool of water and pushed our heads under water. Then they lifted us up, beat us, and asked for guns. Then they pushed our heads into the water again,” he told HRW. “There were five soldiers (each) holding each of us — one for each leg, and each arm, and one person to push our heads into the water.”

The U.N. peacekeeping mission also released a statement on Aug. 24 documenting alleged abuses including rapes, abductions and simulated drownings.

“The majority of the victims are women, and in some cases children,” the mission said, calling on the authorities to hold perpetrators accountable while noting that the army has taken steps to investigate rape cases. The mission added that the army says it has ordered senior officers to conduct investigations and has recalled patrols allegedly involved in “criminal incidents”.

Medicines Sans Frontiers (MSF) told IPS that from mid-March to Aug. 20 it treated 90 people with violent trauma injuries in Pibor town, and surrounding villages. Of those, three died of their injuries. The organisation’s medical team also treated 16 rape survivors and eight survivors of attempted rape over the same period.

“These are just the patients that came to MSF to seek treatment, and MSF is concerned that there may be other people with trauma injuries who have not come forward to seek medical care,” said Stefano Zannini, MSF’s head of mission.

The U.N. mission, UNMISS, said on Aug. 24 there have been “significant improvements in the security situation in Jonglei state” since the clashes early this year, but incidents of abuse have spiked recently.

“UNMISS is concerned by the recent increase in serious human rights violations allegedly committed by some undisciplined elements within the South Sudanese Army (SPLA) in Pibor County.”

The mission said that between July 15 and Aug. 20 its monitoring teams recorded one killing, 27 allegations of torture or ill treatment, 12 rapes, six attempted rapes and eight abductions.

Researchers with HRW said they received credible reports of rape, and reports from local officials that more than six civilians were killed in the village of Likuangole after a soldier was killed on Aug. 16.

“Such reports likely represent a small fraction of the actual total number of incidents, as many victims do not travel to Pibor to report the crimes,” Bekele said in the letter to Kiir, referring to the county capital, which is also called Pibor.

The U.N. mission noted that the government sponsored a conference in May that brought together tribal leaders who agreed on steps to be taken to foster peace in Jonglei.

“Failure to identify those suspected of human rights abuses, carry out full investigations in all cases, and demonstrate that justice is being done for the victims, will undermine the confidence and collaboration of local communities in the disarmament process, and risks derailing the peace process,” the mission said.

South Sudan’s government spokesman, Barnaba Marial Benjamin, directed questions to the country’s human rights commission chair, Lawrence Korbandy, who was unable to comment.

Dozens of women and children dig into the earth in a dried out watering hole in the Jamam refugee camp in South Sudan in order to extract water from waist-deep pits after water ran out. Credit: Jared Ferrie/IPS

By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON, Jun 19 2012 (IPS)

Within the next nine days, drinking water at refugee camps in South Sudan’s Upper Nile state will run dry, warned the aid agency Doctors Without Borders on Tuesday. Meanwhile, refugees continue to stream into the state, as the few camps set up to house to entrants are stretched even further beyond capacity.

According to the most recent update by the United Nations, tens of thousands of people are currently moving from Sudan’s Blue Nile state, fleeing violence and fighting in Sudan that aid workers call “horrific”. During the first week of June, an estimated 4,000 people per day reportedly crossed the border into Upper Nile.

Those numbers have massively overshot initial preparedness estimates by the international aid community. For instance, the U.N.’s refugee agency, UNHCR, originally planned for approximately only 75,000 people in the state of Upper Nile.

As of Tuesday, an estimated 110,000 people have crossed the border into Upper Nile alone, according to Doctors Without Borders, also known as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). That number includes some 35,000 in just the last three weeks and doesn’t account for the tens of thousands more in the neighbouring states of South Sudan and Ethiopia.

In Upper Nile, that number now includes 70,000 in three camps – one of which is still under construction – as well as another 40,000 that are still on foot. Of these, half are living temporarily in settlements along the road and planning to move to one of the camps.

“This is group is our biggest concern, as they have been travelling for weeks to months, living under extremely poor conditions,” Voitek Asztabski, MSF’s emergency coordinator in Juba, told journalists on Tuesday. “Mortality is above emergency thresholds. These people are exhausted and have gone through horrific insecurity in Blue Nile.”

MSF says that right now, the most critical and dire problem is the lack of water in a notoriously water-scarce region, a problem for those both in and outside the camps.

A looming crisis

Even at the three camps, which were built in areas with known water reserves, available resources are quickly being drained. Asztabski says that aid workers are currently rationing 7.5 litres of water per day to refugees, but warns that supplies are set to run out in a little more than a week’s time.

“We have nine days to see these people relocated,” he said, calling for emergency hydrological exploration to help find water reserves.

Although the imminent start of the rainy season will ease the water situation somewhat, it will also complicate other pressing issues.

Washed-out roads will make it difficult to transport both refugees and critical supplies of food, medicines and even treated water. The U.N., meanwhile, has pointed out a lack of heavy equipment to deal with road closures.

Already, Asztabski said, “people have been eating tree bark and leaves.” Refugees in the camps are currently receiving food every four or five days, he reports, while aid workers have also been able to distribute plastic sheeting and blankets.

“The critical situation requires scaling up capacity of all involved actors on the ground in every aspect of support for the refugees,” he warned.

Clinics in the camps are seeing around 200 to 300 people per day, according to Erna Rijnierse, a medical doctor who spoke on Tuesday by satellite phone from the Maban camp in Upper Nile.

Most of these people are suffering from diarrhea given the lack of basic sanitation, a health issue that compounds the already urgent problem of dehydration. And as the rainy season starts, Rijnierse warned that doctors will see new cases of respiratory diseases as well.

The clinics are treating 20 to 30 new children every day, particularly for complications due to malnutrition. Rijnierse reported that official malnutrition levels are at emergency thresholds, but quickly added that the actual numbers are almost certainly higher.

International intervention

According to UNHCR, some 200,000 refugees have fled Sudan since June 2011, heading to South Sudan as well as Ethiopia.

The recent influx stems from a new round of fighting between the Sudanese military and rebels in May, violence that has included an ongoing campaign of bombing civilians. This violence has been coupled with a severe food shortage afflicting much of the region.

Fleeing refugees report widespread violence in Blue Nile and South Kordofan, also in Sudan, including “fighting, burning of villages and houses, contamination of water points”, Adrian Edwards, a UNHCR spokesperson, said on Tuesday. He noted that the U.N. has not been able to verify the situation because it does not have access.

UNHCR is “very concerned” about the population that remains in the areas of Sudan experiencing violence, Edwards said. “We’re currently requesting access to those populations, but at the moment this is not forthcoming.”

On Monday, Jenn Christian with the Enough Project, a Washington-based anti-genocide advocacy group, called on the international community to impose sanctions on the Sudanese government.

“A concerted diplomatic effort must also be initiated to pressure Sudan to negotiate a ceasefire” with the rebels, she wrote. “Such negotiations are critical in terms of stemming further human suffering within Sudan and are also necessary to the further progression of Sudan-South Sudan talks.”

Over the past weekend, UNHCR was finally able to begin an emergency airlift of supplies, having recently gained access to an airstrip 90 to 150 kilometres from the three Upper Nile refugee camps.

This airlift was the first of its kind since December. Supplies included equipment to drill new wells for drinking water. Additional supply routes have also been created through Ethiopia and up the Nile River.