Government announces support for humanitarian rail corridor

Khartoum has made public its stated wish to see the use of a humanitarian rail corridor between Kosti and Wau - across the front line in the Sudanese civil war - to assist and drastically reduce the cost of humanitarian service delivery to affected populations. The government, encouraged by US Envoy to Sudan Harry Johnston in March, had formally written to the US to request the exemption from its economic embargo of parts needed by WFP to rehabilitate the rail line, according to a statement from the Ministry of External Relations. The government also reiterated a stipulation that “parties to the conflict undertake to supply full security guarantees to ensure the safety of UN convoys throughout their journey on this rail corridor.” The link between the central town of Kosti and Wau, one of the largest cities in the south, was some way off, even if agreement could be reached on rehabilitation of rolling stock, and would be “for the exclusive use of the WFP” and not combatant parties, humanitarian sources in Khartoum told IRIN.

The link could, in principle, be extremely useful in cutting the high costs associated with air delivery of food assistance but the railway was in a state of great disrepair so it would not be known how useful it really was until it worked in practice, they said. The Technical Committee for Humanitarian Assistance (TCHA) of the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) had previously hammered out an agreement in principle on road, rail and barge humanitarian corridors between the government, the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) and the UN, and the government’s statement was not something substantively new but a public commitment to the agreement, the sources added.