Peace talks aimed at resolving Sudan's 15-year-old civil war restart in Nairobi today against a backdrop of imminent famine in the south of the country.
Amid growing signs that up to 700,000 people could be starving in war-affected parts of Bahr el Ghazal province, aid agencies are reportedly near to declaring the region a major disaster zone.
The Irish agency Concern this weekend launched an appeal in aid of southern Sudan, and Trocaire, Goal and World Vision Ireland have assigned emergency staff and/or funding to the region. The Department of Foreign Affairs has allocated £100,000 to World Vision's relief programme.
Those most at risk have been caught in fighting between the Islamic government in Khartoum and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA). The Muslim Arabised north has been fighting black Christian or animist rebels in the south since 1983. More than one million people have died in the conflict. A drought last year added to the country's woes.
The Minister of State for Overseas Development, Ms Liz O'Donnell, says Sudan is facing a humanitarian crisis of "potentially catastrophic proportions". She has called on the government in Khartoum to allow access to relief flights carrying relief supplies to southern Sudan.
According to Concern's chief executive, Mr David Begg, the main problem facing the relief operation is lack of access to the affected areas held by the SPLA. "The Khartoum government has air control and has limited the relief airlift to three flights a day. This is hopelessly inadequate."
The World Food Programme has warned of "catastrophic famine" unless Khartoum allows it to triple relief flights into Bahr el Ghazal. WFP, together with Concern and other agencies, is now planning to get food into the region by barge on the Nile. According to Trcaire's emergency officer, Ms Sinead Tynan, malnutrition rates among children are soaring and fewer than 10 per cent of the children seen by one agency were of normal weight. According to some reports, farmers were scavenging ant nests to find seeds carried away by insects.
The Nairobi talks, which ended inconclusively last November, are resuming under the forum of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), a seven-nation grouping of regional states. Since the talks ended inconclusively last November, their context has altered radically.
Last year, the SPLA was preparing a military strike on the southern capital Juba. Now, however, the prime time for an attack on Juba has passed, a rebel attempt to take Wau in Bahr el Ghazal was unsuccessful, and the threat of famine has increased pressure on both sides to halt the fighting.
The SPLA has proposed a loose confederation between south and north and a referendum after two years. The Khartoum government wants a tighter federation to hold the country together.
The start of the talks coincides with the arrival in Nairobi of the UN secretary general, Mr Kofi Annan, who is on an African tour. UN officials yesterday warned that they were in urgent need of cash to finance the expanding aid programme in Sudan.
Mindful of the difficulties which have arisen in the past in other war-torn parts of East Africa, aid agencies have stopped short of declaring the situation a major disaster. The agencies believe it would be counter-productive to raise the funds for a major intervention until the difficulties of access are resolved.
AFP adds: A UN official, Mr Ross Mountain, said late yesterday that the Sudanese government had given permission for four more UN transport planes to fly relief supplies into southern Sudan.