Mail Accumulates As Post Strike Enters Second Day

Panafrican News Agency, 14 November 2000

Khartoum, Sudan’Thousands of parcels and letters had formed a heap at Khartoum airport Tuesday, as the strike by postal workers entered its second day.

The Sudanese Post and Telegraph trade union Monday declared a three-day strike to press demands for the payment of salary arrears and increments.

As a result of the strike, outgoing as well as incoming mail was halted, affecting many countries in the region, whose international mail transits through Sudan.

Sources at the posts and telegraph corporation expressed fears that the International Posts Federation might punish Sudan as a result of the delay in mail transfer.

But the workers, who planned to end the strike Wednesday, said they had no political motives and that their demands were purely professional.

We have arrears unpaid for a whole year...the strike is not an end in itself...it is a means to an end, posts union chairman Khalid Mohammed Ahmed said.

I’m afraid the disruption of the mail service might shake the international community’s confidence in Sudan as a postal link, he added.

Ahmed warned that the union would embark on a new strike if the authorities fail to respond to the demands. We are planning a new strike next week if the administration does not pay our dues, he said in a statement Tuesday.