Food delivery hindered by access denials

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has expressed concern over the continued humanitarian access denial to the oil-rich region of western Upper Nile in southern Sudan, where constant insecurity, resulting from ongoing fighting between the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), and the Sudan government, has caused the displacement of tens of thousands of civilians.

Laura Melo, WFP spokeswoman for the Horn of Africa and Great Lakes region, told IRIN on Wednesday that the issue of humanitarian access denials to specific areas of southern Sudan was not a new situation.

However, she added, the decision by the Sudanese government to deny relief agencies access to western Upper Nile (also known as Unity/Wahdah State) in the past three months was increasing the vulnerability of civilians, whose food supply from harvests garnered earlier in the year was already thinning out.

"For the past three months, Unity State has been one of the areas most affected by these flight denials. But because we have been denied access, we can't go there so we don't know what the situation there is like," Melo said.

"We have been attempting to solve the access problems to areas in the southern Sudan, with particular emphasis on western Upper Nile, because it is one of the most vulnerable areas in southern Sudan," she added. "They are now in the lean season and, as the year advances, their harvest will continue to run out."

During the month, WFP, which works with other relief agencies in southern Sudan under the Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS) consortium, distributed some 5,255 mt to some 875,000 beneficiaries, representing 51 percent of the total tonnage planned for the month of May in the southern sector.

The agency stated that nearly 20 percent of the shortfall in planned deliveries in southern Sudan in May affected the Nuba Mountains, where WFP had delivered only a small amount of food while sorting its logistical system.

However, it cited insecurity and flight denials in western Upper Nile and Bieh State as the main reasons for the overall shortfall.

In addition to western Upper Nile/Unity State, humanitarian access has been denied to wide areas of Bahr al-Ghazal, Tambura (in Western Equatoria), Yei (in Bahr al-Jabal) and Upper Nile.

At the start of April, some 40 locations in southern Sudan were listed by the government of Sudan as being denied both flight access and general humanitarian access "for security reasons", which effectively cut off humanitarian supply lines into many parts of western Upper Nile, Eastern Equatoria and Bahr al-Ghazal, according to relief officials.

On 16 May, the Khartoum administration further increased restrictions on humanitarian access by announcing a flight ban for the entire area of Unity State (encompassing western Upper Nile).

The Sudanese government has demanded the transportation of relief materials and humanitarian aid to affected areas from within Sudan and not from "centres abroad", on the basis of transparency, clarity and national sovereignty.

Karam al-Din Abd al-Mawla, the Sudanese Minister for International Cooperation, said on 29 May that the success and management of OLS relief operations to affected populations depended on its positioning within Sudan, which would also provide cheaper land and river delivery alternatives to costly air transportation of relief materials.

A number of human rights groups have accused the Khartoum government of waging a depopulation war against civilians in western Upper Nile region, as part of a wider plan to gain control of oil-rich areas.

According to a report by the European Coalition on Oil in Sudan, released in May, an estimated 50,000 civilians have been forced to flee recent military operations.

"Civilians continue to be forcibly displaced, villages burned to the ground, and helicopter gunships still kill women and children in the south," the report charged.

"The resulting vast empty regions support the allegation that the government is knowingly and deliberately depopulating this oil-rich area in order to make it secure for oil business," according to the report, entitled "Depopulating Sudan's Oil Region".

Khartoum denies targeting civilian populations in oil areas, and has blamed the SPLM/A for escalating military operations and causing the deterioration of humanitarian conditions in Unity/western Upper Nile.

Responding to the accusations, Muhammad Ahmad Dirdeiry, charge d'affaires at the Sudanese embassy in Nairobi told IRIN on Wednesday that it was becoming increasingly difficult to "regulate the war", in the light of mounting accusations which both sides have traded regarding violation of agreements in a number of regions declared tranquillity zones.

"These accusations are not new," he said. "This only indicates that it is very difficult to regulate war. The antidote to all these problems really is a comprehensive ceasefire."

The government of Sudan has consistently called for a comprehensive ceasefire in order to create conditions conducive to peace, while the SPLM/A argues that such a ceasefire is only possible within the context of a political settlement that delivers a just and sustainable peace.

"We appeal to the international community to redouble efforts for a comprehensive ceasefire," Dirdiery added.