UN: Sudan Conflict Severely Affecting 250,000 People
This extract is from allAfrica. Views expressed are the authors’ own.
The United Nations said on Tuesday a quarter of a million people have been severely affected by the conflict in Sudan’s southern border states to which the government continues to deny the world body access.
“We consider there are over one million people who are quite badly affected by the fighting in Blue Nile and South Kordofan,” Mark Cutts, the UN humanitarian agency (OCHA)’s head of office in Sudan, told reporters in Khartoum.
“We also consider that there are about a quarter of a million people who have been severely affected… Our main concern is for populations that are completely cut off from any relief supplies coming in from outside,” he added.
Fighting in the border state of South Kordofan first erupted in early June, just weeks before the formal independence of the south, between the Sudanese army and fighters aligned to the SPLA, the ex-southern rebels turned regular army of South Sudan.
The conflict spilled over three months later into nearby Blue Nile state, another peripheral area where Khartoum moved to assert its authority in the wake of southern secession.
Cutts listed severe disruptions to the farming cycle — which is driving the region’s growing food insecurity — as well as interruptions to basic services such as hospitals, health centres and schools, as examples of the conflict’s social impact.
Despite concerns about the worsening humanitarian situation, the Sudanese government has barred international aid workers, including all UN agencies, from accessing the region, a problem highlighted on Tuesday by the acting UN humanitarian coordinator in Sudan.
“We are in no position to verify the actual needs on the ground or the fulfilment of those needs as we are simply not there,” Peter de Clercq said.
“The only thing that we can say with some confidence is that… we are looking at a deteriorating humanitarian situation in the areas out of which the refugees in neighbouring South Sudan and Ethiopia have fled, both in terms of food and health,” he added.