LRA raids could worsen food situation in the south - report

Persistent attacks on the local populations in southern Sudan by the Ugandan rebel group, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), could exacerbate food insecurity in a region already experiencing shortages as a result of poor harvests, a famine alert agency has warned. The LRA, a brutal group of insurgents widely condemned for committing atrocities against civilians in northern Uganda for over 18 years, is said to have rear bases in southern Sudan. In recent weeks, it has intensified its attacks on villages there. Poor performance of the April-July season crops, especially maize, in southern Sudan's Eastern Equatoria and Bahr el-Jabal region was expected to lead to increased food shortages in the area during the August-December period, the USAID-funded Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS Net), reported in its August update on southern Sudan. The next harvest in that region is not expected until December, it said. The June-September sorghum crop, it added, was expected to be poor in many parts of Jonglei, Upper Nile, Unity, Northern Bahr el-Ghazal, Western Bahr el-Ghazal and Lakes due to rainfall deficits in June and July. Concern was also mounting because significant pockets of high to moderate food-insecure households already existed in these regions, which are host to a significant population of families who recently returned after prolonged displacement in Northern Sudan. According to FEWS Net, areas that were most food insecure were concentrated in Northern Bahr el-Ghazal, Upper Nile, Jonglei and Unity. It blamed the food crisis on several factors, including chronic food insecurity exacerbated by the traditional hunger season, insecurity and increased population returns. Although other areas might be relatively stable, food insecurity could increase, especially if unfavorable rains continued in August, precipitating further declines in crop production or a delay in the September harvest, the agency said. If that happened, food shortages were likely to be evident as early as October or November. FEWS Net urged donors to improve the food pipeline in order to increase the capacity to respond should the situation deteriorate, and called upon agencies involved in providing food to review and update current contingency plans to address likely needs for the next three to five months. Sharing of harvest and livelihood assessment findings would be necessary for timely decision-making, it said, adding that food security assessments would need to focus more on the degree to which people had the capacity to cope using typical drought year strategies, and not limit their analysis to the crop harvests alone.