The government of Sudan has reiterated its demand that UN agencies launching humanitarian operations in the country must operate from bases inside the country, according to a Khartoum newspaper report citing Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Chol Deng.
The minister made the statement in a meeting with UN Humanitarian Coordinator Kenzo Oshima, who arrived for a four-day official visit on Sunday, ‘Al-Rai al-Amm’ reported on Monday. Deng said that El-Obeid airstrip in Northern Kordofan, western Sudan, was now in a position to receive large aircraft with the capacity to deliver relief items to affected populations.
An estimated three million people face ongoing food insecurity in Sudan because of civil war, displacement and continuing drought, which has particularly affected northern and western Darfur, Kordofan, the Red Sea Hills, Eastern Equatoria and northern Bahr el Ghazal. Heavy rains which were rendering roads in many parts of Sudan impassable recently forced the WFP to expand its food airlift operations to new locations in northern and southern Sudan in order to reach some 200,000 people cut off from help. The WFP emergency food aid operation, targeting 2.9 million vulnerable people, was “essential to keep people alive over the coming months”.
The Commission-General of the government’s Humanitarian Aid Commission (HAC), Dr Sulaf Al-Din Salih, affirmed that there would be talks on the integration of Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS) - which currently has its headquarters in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, with an advance operations base in Lokichoggio, northern Kenya - through HAC headquarters, and a reduction in humanitarian operations originating outside the country, according to sources in Khartoum. Al-Din Salih also said there would be talks between Oshima and the Sudanese government on humanitarian access to the Nubah Mountains area of Southern Kordofan and areas of southern Sudan, among other issues.
During his visit, Oshima is scheduled to hold talks on the humanitarian needs generated by last month’s floods; visit conflict-displaced people in Ed-Daein, southern Darfur; talk to both government and rebel sides on improved humanitarian access; and meet UN agencies and other UN agencies to discuss the challenges facing relief operations, according to humanitarian sources.
[for additional IRIN reports on the humanitarian crisis in Sudan, go to:
http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN/archive/sudan.phtml]