UN begins relief operation in Sudan disputed Abyei

May 19, 2008 (KHARTOUM) — U.N. agencies and aid workers on Monday began distributing food to some of the 30,000 to 50,000 people displaced by deadly fighting in an oil-rich flashpoint on the border between north and south Sudan.

“Today we are distributing vital food assistance in two locations in Agok. A total of five food centers are being set up covering some 18 villages,” said David Gressly, U.N. regional coordinator for southern Sudan, in a statement.

“We are also providing clean water and health care to the displaced people,” Gressly added. Agok lies south of Abyei town near the border with Warrap state.

The U.N. on Saturday sent an emergency assessment team to Abyei after evacuating its entire civilian staff in the wake of several days of fighting between Sudanese government forces and southern ex-rebels.

The most pressing humanitarian needs are food, shelter, water and health, but the rainy season is hampering access to some areas in the east and insecurity poses challenges to the west, the U.N. said.

Aid workers told AFP that Abyei’s market had been burnt to the ground and they have been unable to finalize the number of casualties from the fighting.

Almost the entire population of Abyei town – an impoverished settlement in the heart of an oil-rich district whose fate is yet to be determined despite the end of civil war – are believed to have fled the fighting.

Aid workers and south Sudan politicians have told AFP that bodies lay in the streets and that looting reportedly took place in the ramshackle town.

The fighting began on Wednesday between the army and Sudan People’s Liberation Army, who fought a 21-year civil war with Khartoum ended by a peace deal in 2005, following an isolated incident between rival forces to the north.

Impasse over the area – whose oil wealth is bitterly contested by the two sides – is one of the stumbling blocks delaying implementation of the peace deal and exacerbating tensions between north and south.

(AFP)