US promises food aid

US Secretary of State Colin Powell has pledged 40,000 mt of food for emergency programmes in Sudan, and encouraged the government to do everything it could to increase access to all those in need of humanitarian assistance. The US humanitarian envoy to Sudan, Andrew Natsios, travelling with Powell, said the situation was deteriorating very rapidly in northern Sudan, and that had led the US to pledge the additional 40,000 mt of food aid, to be distributed to those in need on both sides of the civil war, the BBC reported. The US Agency for International development (USAID) had diverted a ship carrying 17,000 mt of food in the Indian Ocean from Bangladesh to Port Sudan to save time on delivery, Natsios told journalists after meeting representatives of aid agencies working in Sudan. The food would be in Port Sudan in two weeks, Natsios said. Providing food aid to the north was a change of policy for the US, which in the past had mainly sent humanitarian aid to war victims, and mostly in southern Sudan, Associated Press (AP) reported on Monday.

Powell said the US administration of George W. Bush had alsmost completed its review of policy on Sudan, and that food aid would have a part to play in it, Reuters news agency reported. The appointment of a new political envoy was not far off and would show that the US was intent on engaging with Sudan - either to re-energise ongoing peace processes or gauge the need for a different direction, Powell said.