AlertNet: Conflict-hit Sudanese may go hungry despite aid deal

AlertNet reports that even amid government pledges to allow for easier access to food relief in areas of conflict around Sudan’s border states, aid groups believe these populations are still in danger of famine.

The proposal was first suggested by a number of organizations, including the African Union, Arab League, and United Nations, in order to connect humanitarian aid to civilians in certain areas of Sudan. While Sudan did agree to the plan, there is much skepticism surrounding the implementation and efficacy of such an agreement. Humanitarian organizations fear that the Sudanese government’s assent was merely symbolic and are still finding it difficult to deliver food relief to the areas of conflict around Sudan’s border states. According to one USAID report, “Hundreds of thousands of people remain trapped in the conflict zone with little access to food, water, shelter and medical services.”

While thousands of refugees have been fleeing to neighboring countries, they hardly fare better than their counterparts who have remained in Sudan. According to AlertNet, the same lack of water, sanitation, and health care threatens the crowded refugee camps, which often have high numbers of women and children.

The Sudanese government’s agreement to allow for unimpeded access of aid agencies to the zones of conflict has yet to be put into action. AlertNet cited government-controlled newspapers that have cast a suspicious light upon humanitarian aid groups and have praised the Sudanese government for preventing outside influences upon Sudan. Outside Sudan, critics have condemned the government’s lack of action, calling it a “classic strategy” where “the government publicly states acceptance of a proposal it had essentially rejected earlier, but places restrictive conditions on the implementation of that proposal.”

Read the full article here.

Photos: By Sudan Envoy (USAID and WFP Aid) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

By Mark Knobil from Pittsburgh, usa (Camp) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons