ACF alarm at malnutrition in Unity State

The NGO Action Contre la Faim (ACF) on Tuesday expressed urgent concern about an "alarming food crisis" it said was emerging in Unity (Wahdah) State, also known as western Upper Nile, in southern Sudan. The food and nutrition situation was particularly worrying in Bentiu and Rob Kona areas, it added. Already last year, at the same time, the malnutrition rate among young children was 20 percent in these areas, and it rose to between 30 and 40 percent a few months later, according to ACF, which said it was now sounding the alarm in order to avert a humanitarian catastrophe. "We cannot then say we did not know; we cannot say there was nothing we could do," the NGO stated. No general food distribution had been undertaken by the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) for the population between January and March this year, with those distributions which did take place limited to displaced people who arrived in Bentiu and Rob Kona in February and March, according to ACF. In April, the residents of this area received only half-rations, even though most of them are totally dependent on these distributions to meet their needs, it stated. Moreover, it said, the period of the "hunger gap" - traditionally difficult, coming between the year's two harvests - was approaching, and ACF food aid distribution centres were already seeing an increasing number of people suffering from malnutrition. [ Click here to see the Sudan page] WFP told IRIN on Tuesday that the agency traditionally scaled back on food distributions from January to March, because this was the post-harvest period when people typically had access to some food resources, and the agency wanted to avoid food aid dependency as much as possible. "We are now reaching 'the lean season' when stocks are needed much more, and this is why we're particularly interested in getting flight access to western Upper Nile," said a WFP official, Laura Melo, in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. Melo said the main problem in reaching Unity State at the moment was that the government of Sudan was currently denying flight access for the whole of western Upper Nile. Some or all districts in the area had been "flight-denied" by the government for months now, and the government had denied access to the whole region for the month of May for security reasons, she added. Serious military engagements have been taking place for some months between government of Sudan forces and the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) in western Upper Nile, according to diverse media and humanitarian sources. The SPLA has said the fighting began in February when the government tried to force residents and the rebel movement out of the area in order to secure it for oil production. The government denies there has been forcible displacement of civilians, and says it is involved in defending oil installations from attack. Meanwhile, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Sudan Gerhart Baum, international human rights groups and aid agencies have all voiced concern that the struggle to control oil-rich areas and revenues in southern Sudan is exacerbating the civil war. Senior UN officials on 25 April called on all parties to the conflict in Sudan to lift all bans on humanitarian aid flights, and to grant full access to people in desperate need of humanitarian assistance. "We are appealing to both sides to give us access so we can get food and non-food items to people who need it," said Ambassador Tom Vraalsen, Special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs in Sudan. The Sudanese government has denied access to more than 40 locations since late March, which was double the usual number of denials, thereby effectively cutting off humanitarian supply lines into parts of western Upper Nile, Eastern Equatoria and Bahr al-Ghazal, according to a statement issued by the UN Executive Committee on Humanitarian Affairs (ECHA). Lack of humanitarian access in Sudan - affecting over one million people dependent on food aid - coincides with the end of the dry season, a time when aid agencies seek to increase their shipments of relief supplies in preparation for the rainy season, which renders many roads impassable. "We cannot allow a repeat of the 1998 famine, when a combination of dry season fighting and denials of humanitarian access brought about massive starvation," UN Emergency Relief Co-coordinator Kenzo Oshima said in late April. "We need access, and we need it now." [Click here for more details] In Bentiu and Rob Kona, there has been a steady increase in newly admitted malnourished people at ACF feeding centres in the last few months, with 251 in January, 438 in February, 623 in March and 643 in April, the NGO stated on Tuesday. By the end of April, some 1,400 moderately malnourished people were attending ACF centres, more than double the 641 beneficiaries at the end of January, it added. In addition, the agency's last survey (from 8 to 13 April) had revealed "alarming malnutrition rates", ACF stated: thus, more than 20 percent of children aged under five years in Bentiu-Rob Kona were suffering from global malnutrition. "ACF fears a further deterioration in this situation in the absence or urgent and serious action," it added. According to the organisation, a similar situation prevailed last year, when no general food distribution had been effected between May and August, and this had led to "unacceptable rates of malnutrition" - around 30 percent of global malnutrition among children aged under five years in Bentiu and close to 40 percent in Rob Kona. In Tuesday's statement, ACT appealed to the international community, UN agencies, NGOs and the government of Sudan "to address the humanitarian situation and food shortage in Unity State as soon as possible." "Without an urgent reaction, a dramatic food crisis is foreseeable in the months to come," it warned.