UN Warns Potential Tragedy in Southern Sudan

From sidahmed, 10 February 1998

The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs announced today that as of February 4, the government of the Sudan denies humanitarian agencies access to recently displaced populations by suspending all flights into the Bahr el Ghazal Region of the southern Sudan.

An estimated 100,000 displaced—mainly women and children—were reported to be fleeing the civil conflict that flared up in and around the towns of Wau, Aweil and Gogrial over the past week.

The displaced people were said to be gathering in a number of locations in Bahr el Ghazal, but were reported to be week, hungry and in urgent need of assistance in the form of food, medicines and shelter materials.

The office said these flight suspensions are putting the lives of vulnerable civilians at great risk. The people displaced have been walking for several days without food and with little water and are exhausted.

The flights ban covers almost half of the population of the southern Sudan and has a serious impact, not only on the war-affected population, but also on hundreds of thousands of women and children living in Bahr el Ghazal, one of the most deprived areas in the South, which was already experiencing a severe food deficit before the current crisis.

The office said that with little or no medicines on the ground, wounded civilians caught in the conflict have no chance of receiving medical care. Cases of diarrhoeal diseases are already reported among children in the move.