PRESS BRIEFING ON SUDAN

“Sudan presents us with a very complex situation; it is a mixture of some positive developments and others which give rise to very serious concerns”, Tom Vraalsen, Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs for the Sudan, told correspondents at a Headquarters press briefing this afternoon.

Outlining the positive aspects, Mr. Vraalsen said Senator Jack Danforth, the Envoy of United States President George W. Bush, visited the Sudan some time back and presented the Government of the country with a four-point request for action. That Government responded positively, in particular, to the request for a ceasefire, which was obtained in Nuba Mountains.  An agreement had also been made to send in a monitoring force to oversee that ceasefire.  That force, called the Joint Military Commission, was now operational and was deployed in Nuba.  It had already contributed to freedom of movement and a more optimism by the people of Nuba.

Mr. Vraalsen said another positive that had resulted from Senator Danforth’s visit was the setting up of a commission to look into allegations of abduction and slavery.  The commission had visited the Sudan, and he understood that it had received the full cooperation of the Sudanese Government.  It would submit its report by the end of May.

“We had hoped that we would have witnessed similar positive developments in Sudan in relation to humanitarian relief and the actions of the United Nations”, continued Mr. Vraalsen.  “Unfortunately, for the past few months we have been denied access to areas affecting somewhere between 1.5 to 1.7 million people who are depending on outside food and non-food aid to survive.”  Fighting had intensified in several areas in south Sudan and a large number of people had been displaced.  That was a cause for very serious concern.  The matter had been discussed at a meeting of the Executive Committee on Humanitarian Affairs (ECHA), which was held this morning at Headquarters.  A press release of that meeting was now available.

Mr. Vraalsen said that denied access might move the Sudan towards a situation similar to that of 1998 when there was a severe famine in Bahr El Gazal.  “We are now appealing to both sides -- the Government and the Sudanese Peoples’ Liberation Movement -- to give us access so that we can get both food and non-food aid to the people who are badly in need of it”, he said.  “We are doing our level best and we are constantly in touch with representatives from both sides to see to it that we get the access.”  There had, however, not been any success as yet.

“We need to mobilize the international community and enlist the support of that community so that we can get the access we need”. he added.  “We also need to convince the parties to give us this access.” 

Kevin Kennedy, Chief, Humanitarian Emergency Branch, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said the restrictions on access in the Sudan came from both sides of the conflict, but were mainly imposed by the Government. Due to the fighting, deliveries to the city of Wau had been declared particularly dangerous and inadvisable.  That added another 200,000 people to the other

1.5 million who were inaccessible.  “Our call is, therefore, to both parties to allow humanitarian organizations to go forward, bearing in mind that in the Sudan the United Nations and its partner non-governmental organizations deliver assistance to nearly 6 million people”, he said.  That was probably the largest humanitarian relief programme in the world today.

A correspondent noted that government restrictions on humanitarian aid followed the attacks on a food-distribution centre –- and at least two of those attacks had been carried out by helicopter gunships.  An inquiry had been made and report submitted to the Sudanese Government.  Had there had been any follow up on that issue?

Mr. Vraalsen said that once he had been informed about the attack on

20 February, in which 24 people were killed in a place where the World Food Programme (WFP) had been in the process of distributing food, immediate action had been taken. “We raised the issue with the Government and demanded an explanation”, he said.  “Other people had done the same thing, and we were assured that the incident would be investigated and that the necessary measures would be taken.  We have not seen the report, but the Government reassured us such an incident would not happen again.”

Mr. Vraalsen went on to say that the Sudanese Government stated that the attack on the WFP food-distribution operation was an incident that it regretted.  There had been two incidents of that nature, but the second one in February had been the most severe.  “After the first incident, we were assured that it would never again be repeated.  Then it happened again, and we really reacted very strongly to it, because the operation was taking place in a locale that had been approved”, he said.  That attack was, therefore, totally unacceptable.  The Government had subsequently issued a public statement of regret and stated that the necessary measures would be taken to ensure that there was no such repetition in the future.

Responding to a question on excuses for the prevention of humanitarian access, Mr. Vraalsen said “we do not accept any excuse from either side as to   why we cannot supply food aid to those in need”.  It had to be borne in mind, nevertheless, that there was a civil war going on in the Sudan and, of course, when the fighting was most intense, there were places which were inaccessible, due to security reasons.  Inaccessibility, however, should be limited to just security concerns and where it affected the “safety of our own people”.

Responding to a question on ECHA, Mr. Kennedy said that body was one of the committees established by the Secretary-General to provide him with advice – and, in this case, on humanitarian affairs. The Committee was chaired by the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Kenzo Oshima, and its membership included the principal United Nations agencies involved in humanitarian operations:  the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), WFP, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), as well as other departments of the United Nations, such as the Secretariat and the Department of Peacekeeping Operations.  The ECHA was really a sister committee to the Executive Committee on Peace and Security, which was more of political body and more military oriented.