Donors issue strong call for access

A joint meeting of donors to Sudan and aid agencies operating under the Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS) umbrella has come out with "a clear and unambiguous message" to all parties in Sudan to ensure "unimpeded humanitarian access to all populations in need".

The principle of "unimpeded access to those in need" must be pursued vigorously and persistently by donors, the United Nations and NGOs, it concluded.

In particular, these organisations should push for increased access to key locations in war-torn western Upper Nile (also known as Unity/Wahdah State) and to Eastern Equatoria, before the imminent arrival of the rainy season, which will hamper aid interventions, according to participants.

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), in a humanitarian update covering the first five months of 2002, expressed deep concern about the fate of women and children caught up in the fighting, which continues to displace people from their homes in western Upper Nile. Humanitarian actors working in Sudan estimate that between 150,000 and 300,000 people were displaced in western Upper Nile alone between January and April.

The joint donors' meeting, held in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on Monday and Tuesday took place as the government of Sudan issued a schedule of clearances for humanitarian access flights for June that had caused "considerable concern", according to aid workers.

Not only was access denied to some locations but others were put "under advisory", meaning held in abeyance, either because of a possible security risk to humanitarian personnel or because the place names were allegedly not known, they said.

Another requirement which had caused some alarm was that all humanitarian access to western Upper Nile/Unity, must be through government-controlled areas, primarily through the Northern Kordofan town of El Obeid (Al-Ubayyid).

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/western Upper Nile.

The government last week agreed to a resumption of aid flows into the highly contested area of western Upper Nile, but on the condition that relief flights passed through the north. Khartoum said aid agencies would be permitted to fly relief to the oil-rich region for the first time in over two months, but on condition that the aid originated in government territory in northern Sudan, principally from El Obeid, humanitarian sources said.

UN sources told IRIN that government representatives had insisted that access to western Upper Nile/Unity would only be allowed through government-controlled territory in the north, for security reasons. However, no official agreement had been signed, and no written proposals had been put forward by the government negotiators, they added.

Minister for International Cooperation, Karam al-Din Abd al-Mawla, last week outlined "basic and necessary principles" for the management of the OLS programme to assist vulnerable people in Sudan, including administration of the programme and delivery of assistance from inside the country, the official Sudan News Agency (Suna) reported on 30 May.

He said the transportation and delivery of relief should be undertaken from inside Sudan in the interest of transparency and clarity, besides the importance of "safeguarding the national sovereignty of the state", Suna reported.

Khartoum also pointed to the high cost of air transportation of relief supplies from outside the country, and suggested that transportation from inside by land and river would be more efficient, it said. Overall administration of humanitarian programmes should be from one office in Khartoum, with support activities from a branch office in Lokichoggio, northern Kenya, only when necessary, it quoted Abd al-Mawla as saying.

Major changes in operating procedures should properly be made only as a result of discussions and negotiations involving all the parties to the tripartite agreement on humanitarian operations in Sudan: the government, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army and the OLS consortium, humanitarian sources informed IRIN on Wednesday.

The three parties signed, in December 1999, Agreement on the Implementation of Principles Governing the Protection and Provision of Humanitarian Assistance to War-Affected Civilian Populations, which included a measure stating that war-affected civilian populations had the right to receive humanitarian assistance.

The joint donors' meeting noted "an increasing number of instances" where access and humanitarian principles were being subverted by administrative procedures, and the impression was sometimes given that the intention was to add restrictions, create ambiguity and "deny people in need", according to informed sources.

It was decided at the joint donors' meeting to press for access to seven persistently denied locations in Eastern Equatoria, that a number of locations under government "advisory" should be assessed by OLS security to see if conditions allowed access, and that all OLS airstrips should be identified clearly on a map made available to the government and SPLM/A to avoid any possible confusion about locations.

As for western Upper Nile, where reports suggest a serious humanitarian crisis is in the making, the Nairobi meeting said locations in SPLM-controlled areas should continue to be accessed through the OLS base at Lokichoggio in northwestern Kenya - and not through El Obeid.

In addition, it strongly suggested that access to key locations should be maintained for long enough to allow "meaningful interventions", and not just hit-and-run activities, according to humanitarian sources.