UN protests against humanitarian flight denials

The United Nations system on Friday condemned a decision by the Sudanese government to deny humanitarian flight access to 43 locations in southern Sudan.

In a statement, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Kenzo Oshima urged the Khartoum government to rescind its decision and "immediately grant access to all the denied locations, to enable international agencies to continue delivery of life-saving supplies to the people of Sudan".

Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS), the umbrella operation for UN and nongovernmental organisations operating in Sudan, submits a routine request at the start of each month to the government of Sudan and the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) for humanitarian flight access to a number of locations in southern Sudan.

On average, Sudanese government authorities denied OLS access to 25 locations in southern Sudan each month, which represented about 10 percent of the requests, the UN said.

At the start of April, however, 43 locations, including the strategic town of Rumbek, Lakes region, were listed as being denied both flight access and general humanitarian access, according to relief officials.

Negotiations between UN representatives and government officials had resulted in the removal of Rumbek from the list of denied locations, and in the lifting of the restrictions on general humanitarian access, leaving 42 locations still "flight denied", sources told IRIN on Monday.

This is the second consecutive month that Khartoum has increased the number of denied locations to almost 20 percent of requests for access, the UN said.

At the beginning of March, Sudanese authorities denied access to over 40 locations, saying the restrictions had been imposed to help the government verify the locations of aid deliveries in southern Sudan.

April's government submission of access denied locations and the one for March differed in several of the locations listed, sources said.

The imposition of humanitarian flight denials in April could affect the delivery of humanitarian assistance to about 1.7 million people, according to the statement released by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

"These flight bans can have a devastating impact on entire populations," said Judith Lewis, the World Food Programme (WFP) Regional Director for East and Southern Africa. "Extremely debilitated people will be virtually cut off from basic assistance such as food and health care," she said.

Lack of access was expected to have serious repercussions on the entire populations of Upper Nile, northern Bahr al-Ghazal and Lakes regions, the UN statement said. A number of locations affected by the flight denials in Bahr al-Ghazal were "crucial" for reaching some of the most vulnerable populations, it added.

Although a series of meetings involving government officials and WFP representatives had made some progress in easing the restrictions, the UN food agency said it would not be able to operate adequately without wider access to affected populations in southern Sudan.

Sudanese government authorities were also demanding that all WFP flights entering Sudanese airspace should contact the air control tower in the government-held town of Juba, Eastern Equatoria.

The request was "virtually impossible" to comply with, as aircraft entered Sudanese territory some 150 nautical miles from Juba - too far to establish VHF radio contact with Juba, WFP said.

WFP said the government of Sudan was imposing "bureaucratic obstacles" on operations by demanding maps and coordinates of the locations to which relief assistance was to be supplied.

"Despite our continuous request to the UN, it has not yet provided details and maps of the regions which it intends to fly to, but to the contrary, flights are carried out to positions unknown to us, exposing humanitarian aid workers and possessions to danger," the head of the Sudanese government's Humanitarian Aid Commission, Sulaf al-Din Salih, was quoted as saying by the Al-Ayyam newspaper on 6 April.

"Indeed, the failure by UN to respond to these requirements may make us withdraw our facilitation to a reasonable level," Sulaf al-Din Salih warned.

The deaths of at least 24 people in a government helicopter gunship attack on a food distribution centre at the village of Bieh, western Upper Nile, in February, was widely condemned by humanitarian agencies, and led to the United States suspending peace discussions with Khartoum.

The Sudanese government and the SPLM/A subsequently signed an agreement to protect civilians in the country's 19-year civil war, and the US has resumed engagement in Sudanese peace efforts.

"This [decision to deny access] is a violation of the humanitarian principles and the tripartite agreement under which OLS was created in 1989, a commitment subscribed to by the government of Sudan," WFP's Judith Lewis said.