Tide turns on Sudan famine

Fight against hunger: Civil war combatants allow 'unimpeded access' for UN as work of aid agencies begins to pay off

AS A result of two groundbreaking agreements between the Sudanese government, guerrilla forces and the United Nations, hopes have increased among relief organisations that they are starting to conquer the famine in the southern part of the country.

Both the UN and aid groups such as Oxfam insist the battle is not conclusively won, and that a repetition of drought or flood, a breakdown in the existing limited ceasefire or a flare-up of fighting could plunge the region back into disaster before the next harvest in autumn 1999.

But since the extreme point of crisis last July, the situation has improved radically for the 1.5 million people, most of them in the Bahr el Ghazal region in the south-west of Sudan, who have been supplied with food in the biggest humanitarian airdrop operation in history.

Brenda Barton, of the UN's World Food Programme (WFP), said yesterday on her return from southern Sudan, that the aid effort was being run in secure conditions, which made "a major difference". She said the British contribution of pounds 14m had been invaluable. Britain was the number three donor to the appeal for $284m (pounds 170m), after the United States and the European Union. Another $32m was still needed.

"Thanks to the efforts of everyone, we've managed to turn around the famine," Russell Ulrey, the regional aid co-ordinator for the WFP, said this week. "The crucial thing now is to keep the international effort going, and bring relief to the pockets we haven't managed to reach so far."

Some "tens of thousands" of people were still without succour, most of them in virtual no man's lands run by warlords who obey orders of neither side in the 15-year civil war. But the new agreements, thrashed out in Rome last Wednesday, should help. They will increase the safety of workers in Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS) - 17 of whom have been killed this year - and improve access by strengthening road and rail corridors.

Under the arrangements, both sets of combatants will give "unimpeded access" to UN security personnel to any area where OLS operations are under way. They promise to provide confidential advance warning of planned military operations in areas where OLS workers are active, and not to lay landmines on humanitarian corridors or airstrips.

Leading article, Review, page 3