UN decries bomb attack on relief centre

The World Food Programme (WFP) on Sunday expressed grave concern over two days of heavy bombing on an area used as a site for the distribution of relief food in southern Sudan. WFP said in a statement that 15 bombs were dropped on Saturday on the village of Mangayath, Western Bahr al-Ghazal, "directly into the area where WFP teams were in the process of distributing relief food to some 20,000 civilians". Aid workers have been urgently assisting thousands of people seeking refuge from Raga town, where intense fighting has broken out between government and rebel forces, WFP said. Since late September, some 20,000 people had fled from rebel-held Raga to the Mangayath area, causing a 10-fold increase in the area's population, the statement said.

"We are extremely concerned about the recent incidents, which have created a significant setback to humanitarian operations in the area," said the WFP operations manager for southern Sudan, Ben Martinson. A similar attack was carried out on 5 October, when 15 bombs were dropped around the airfield at Mangayath, where WFP teams were handing out emergency food aid. WFP said it had been forced to suspend food distribution for one day, on 6 October, but on resumption on Sunday, the area had once again come under attack.

Khartoum has been criticised by humanitarian and human rights groups for carrying out bombing raids on civilian targets in southern Sudan. WFP said, however, that it had been given clearance by the Sudanese government to deliver assistance to Mangayath.

WFP said that it would attempt to deliver more food to Mangayath on Monday, and to complete a planned 240-tonne distribution over the next few days. "There are thousands of people whom we need to assist. We sincerely hope that renewed efforts to feed people will go uninterrupted by both sides to the conflict," Martinson said.