Displaced threatened by food insecurity in Shilluk Kingdom

Ongoing insecurity in the Shilluk Kingdom area of Upper Nile, southern Sudan, is threatening food security as tens of thousands of displaced people may be unable to cultivate, according to Norwegian People's Aid (NPA). "The security situation in Shilluk Kingdom will be the major determinant factor to either allow the displaced households to return to original areas and begin cultivation or not," said NPA in an assessment report. "Unfortunately, improved security in the Shilluk Kingdom is not foreseen in the coming months, and even if it happens, it will take time for people to return to their home areas and construct homes again." NPA, the only NGO to have conducted a needs assessment in the southern part of the Shilluk Kingdom since militias began attacking the area in March, said it was likely that this year's cultivation season - from May to November - would be lost. "If no assistance is forthcoming, the assessment team confirms that a substantial crisis is ahead. The deteriorating situation shows no sign of abating," said NPA. While NPA found no evidence of malnutrition in Popwojo (Tonga County) and Oriny (Fashoda County), it said the situation could change if there was no concerted effort on the part of NGOs and donors. "From mid-May onwards, the severity of the food insecurity will increase and large numbers of the displaced population will run a continually high risk of inability to meet food needs." Livestock, food stocks and household goods, fishing gear, bedding and mosquito nets had all been taken or destroyed by the militias "to decimate the population", resulting in a 40 percent to 50 percent loss of its food economy, NPA reported. Currently, displaced families were living under trees and makeshift structures, surviving on fish and wild foods. Since early March, between 50,000 and 120,000 people have been displaced by a series of militia attacks in the Shilluk Kingdom, moving to government garrison towns, the Nuba mountains, the Panaru area, a group of islands in the swampy area between the White Nile and Lol rivers, and northern Sudan. With patchy information from the area and few humanitarian actors on the ground, the numbers and whereabouts of the displaced remains uncertain. Three international NGOs - Tearfund, VSF-Germany and World Vision - and the UN (except for the garrison town of Malakal) have had to pull out of the area. The Shilluk Kingdom area became destabilised after 25 October 2003, when Dr Lam Akol Ajawin, the leader of the government-allied Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army-United (SPLM/A-U), re-defected to the mainstream SPLM/A. Not all of Akol's forces were happy with the move, resulting in an internal split in the SPLM/A-U. In early March 2004, fighting erupted in earnest when pro-government militias began attacking and destroying villages along the White Nile and Bahr al-Ghazal rivers in an apparent attempt to re-establish control over areas in the vacuum created by Akol's re-defection, according to the US-backed team monitoring attacks against civilians, the Civilian and Protection Monitoring Team (CPMT).