UN secures partial lifting of flight bans

The World Food Programme (WFP) said on Tuesday that there has been a partial lifting of restrictions on humanitarian relief flights in southern Sudan.

A WFP spokeswoman, Laura Melo, told IRIN that the Sudanese government had removed an effective one-week blanket ban on flights in western Upper Nile (Unity, or Wahdah State) following discussions with UN officials.

However, newly imposed restrictions on 19 specific locations in southern Sudan, some of them in western Upper Nile, were scheduled to remain in place, also for one week, Melo said. UN officials were continuing discussions with Sudanese government authorities in an attempt to lift these restrictions, she added.

The western Upper Nile region is the site of many of Sudan's oilfields, and has been subject to an escalation of fighting between government and rebel forces in recent weeks.

Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS), the umbrella operation for UN and nongovernmental agencies operating in Sudan, each month submits a request to the Sudanese government for humanitarian access to a number of locations in war-torn southern Sudan.

There were currently a total of 44 locations, including the 19 locations under discussion, in southern Sudan which the government of Sudan had placed off-limits to aid agencies, Melo said.

The Sudanese government said the additional, temporary restrictions had been imposed to help the government verify the locations of aid deliveries in the south of the country, the Associated Press news agency (AP) reported on Saturday.