Close call for WFP in Bahr al-Ghazal bombing

An Antonov bomber attack on Barurud in northwestern Bahr al-Ghazal on Wednesday narrowly missed a World Food Programme (WFP) aircraft about to make an emergency humanitarian food drop, WFP officials confirmed to IRIN on Friday. The Antonov could only have been a government of Sudan plane, according to informed sources.

The WFP Hercules was approaching its drop zone at about 0900 local time when its crew spotted the bombs passing to the left of the aircraft - and immediately aborted the drop, spokeswoman Brenda Barton told IRIN.
An unknown number of bombs fell very close to the drop site, where two WFP staff were on the ground, and a security team went in later in the day to investigate the situation and evacuate the agency’s staff, she said.

WFP immediately informed the government, expressing its concern and its hope that this was a one-off event. Any repetition of such a serious incident had the potential to put the whole humanitarian operation in jeopardy, Barton said.

The ongoing conflict in Sudan’s 18-year-old civil war, combined with recurrent drought, had given rise to a situation in which an estimated 2.97 million people were in need of food assistance and some 600,000 in need of urgent assistance, the FAO’s Global Information and Early Warning System on Food and Agriculture (GIEWS) reported in May. The cereal requirement after commercial imports was estimated at 240,000 mt, but the latest estimates of emergency food aid - in pipeline and under mobilisation - amounted to only 55,000 mt, leaving an uncovered gap of about 157,000 mt, it warned.

The World Food Programme is currently at the peak of its air operations in southern Sudan, flying a total of 15 aircraft and moving about 300 mt of food per day, in an effort to bridge the hunger gap between now and the next potential harvest in October/November.

Drought and insecurity have driven many families from their land and prevented crop cultivation, and, overall, Bahr al-Ghazal is expected to face a food deficit of some 40 percent this year.

WFP had successfully, and without incident, delivered 16 mt in Barurud on Tuesday and 16 mt earlier on Wednesday, and was planning to put in another 16 mt when the second Wednesday drop had to be aborted, according to Barton. The intention was to preposition a total of 82 mt of food for people expected to be fleeing to Barurud from recent fighting between government troops and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), she said. After Wednesday’s incident, WFP would be taking strict security measures on travel into this area until the situation became clearer, Barton added.

The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) on Wednesday accused government forces of killing two civilian women in bombing Barurud. WFP said that one woman was wounded, but had no confirmation of two others killed by the bombs.

The government plane had also dropped several bombs on Akol and Turaley in northern Bahr al-Ghazal, not near the front lines in Sudan’s civil war, according to SPLM/A spokesman Samson Kwaje.

A large-scale SPLA offensive in Bahr al-Ghazal and its reported seizure of the strategic town of town of Raga coincided with a resumption of government bombings on 2 June, UN sources told IRIN on Thursday. The government had announced on 24 May that it would cease bombing targets in southern Sudan and the Nubah Mountains the following day.