UN criticised on humanitarian operation

Roger Winter, the executive director of the US Committee for Refugees has criticised United Nations Special Envoy for Humanitarian Affairs Tom Eric Vraalsen for saying that the UN-led Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS) relief effort was is “in very good shape.”

“This optimistic assessment is wrong, misleading, and strangely out of touch with recent events in Sudan, the world’s largest ongoing humanitarian emergency,” Winter said in a statement released by the committee last week. He said that OLS, which delivers humanitarian relief supplies to hundreds of thousands of people in Sudan, was in disarray and faced some of the most serious threats in its 11-year history.

Winter said OLS flights into southern Sudan were stopped for two days two weeks ago “because of a management error” within OLS. The halt came 48 hours after an eight-day stoppage because of bombing raids. Last week, he said the OLS reaction to a resumption of bombing raids had been weak, and added that it had failed to condemn the Sudanese government for the raids. He also alleged recent infighting among OLS officials had impeded the ability of OLS security experts to monitor dangerous conditions on the ground in southern Sudan, according to aid workers. “International relief workers risking their lives in southern Sudan depend on OLS security assessments that must be timely and accurate,” Winter said. He also accused Khartoum of continuing to “manoeuvre for more control over OLS and potentially tighter restrictions”.

He also accused Sudanese officials of continuing to block OLS humanitarian aid to stricken areas of the Nuba Mountains in central Sudan, and extensive areas of Western Upper Nile and Eastern Equatoria Provinces in the south. Nor does OLS operate in conflict areas in northeastern Sudan.
“In short, OLS is not allowed to help hundreds of thousands of Sudanese people,” he said. “Massive numbers of vulnerable Sudanese civilians are in terrible and deteriorating shape. OLS exists solely to meet their humanitarian needs. Contrary to what some UN officials claim, OLS cannot by definition be in ‘great shape’ when the people it exists to serve are in such desperate shape.”