Displacement an increasing problem

Some 150,000 additional people became displaced in Sudan during the first eight months of 2001, the US Committee for Refugees (USCR) reported on Monday, citing information pieced together from various field reports. This figure comprised 55,000 newly displaced people, who fled from 48 villages in southern Sudan's conflict-torn oil zone during late last year and early 2001; up to 50,000 people displaced in a rebel (Sudan People's Liberation Army) military offensive in Bahr al-Ghazal region (in May/June) and some 40,000 residents of the Nubah Mountains region in central Sudan who fled government military attacks during the first eight months of the year, it said. Smaller numbers of people fled their homes temporarily because of aerial bombing attacks, it added, while not addressing those people displaced or forced into atypical migration patterns by the widespread effects of drought. Thousands of civilians have fled into towns from rural areas, where they have no food left after failed rains and lost harvests in Kordofan and Darfur, according to UNICEF. People were also walking long distances in search for food and water in Western and Northern Darfur, it said. UN Representative for Internally-Displaced Persons, Francis M Deng, last month encouraged Sudan - which has the world's largest number of people uprooted from their homes - to take a lead on the issue, develop a national policy and strategy to tackle displacement, and establish an institution to meet the needs of those affected. The government continued to extract oil in war zones, enabling it to double its military expenditure compared to 1998, according to USCR. Human rights advocates charged that the government military used airstrips and roads built by international oil companies to attack local populations, it said. Funding shortages, restrictions on humanitarian access and security risks had continued to impede humanitarian efforts during the first nine months of 2001, it said, adding that both the government and the rebel forces had "manipulated massive amounts of international relief aid that flows into the country". The government had "regularly" blocked relief assistance to some 15 conflict-affected locations, according to the report, which criticised Khartoum for placing new restrictions on relief flights to the town of Mabil, in Wahdah (Unity) State, a key staging point for humanitarian flights in the south. [for more details, go to: www.refugees.org]