U.N. sees new humanitarian crisis in Sudan’s Upper Nile region

GENEVA, May 12, 2004 (AP) — More than 100,000 people have been forced from their homes in Sudan ‘s southern Upper Nile region in the latest humanitarian crisis to strike the violence-torn country, the U.N. said Wednesday.

“We have received pictures of burning villages – the same pattern as what was witnessed” in the western Darfur area of the country, said Daniel Augustburger, senior emergency officer for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

“People have been forcibly removed from their homes. Some of these displaced are surviving on islands in the Nile.”

Augustburger said aid agencies had until recently failed to recognize the importance of what was happening in the Shilluk Kingdom of northern Upper Nile because they were preoccupied with the huge humanitarian crisis in Darfur, where some 1 million people have fled their homes.

International concern has focused on Darfur, where aid agencies have accused Sudan ‘s Arab-dominated government of providing weapons and air support to an Arab militia waging a campaign of ethnic cleansing against African communities.

U.N. aid workers tried to carry out an assessment in Shilluk Kingdom recently, but were unable to obtain the necessary government clearances, Augustburger said. Plans are now underway for a renewed attempt to visit the region, both from the government-controlled north and the rebel-held south.

On Tuesday, Lam Akol, a leader of the rebels that control the area, said that although the fighting has stopped, many people remain homeless and are surviving only by eating water lilies.

Augustburger said that fighting in the Shilluk Kingdom started after Akol ended his association with the Khartoum government and allied himself with the rebels of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army.

“Following this, the government took measures that has led to the displacement of more than 100,000 people. The government used the presence of various militias to do the job,” Augustburger said.

The fighting broke out despite an October 2002 cease-fire and a nearly two-year peace process aimed at ending the 21-year-old civil war in southern Sudan in which more than 2 million people have died.

Last month, an international monitoring team tasked with verifying the cease-fire in southern Sudan confirmed that government forces had attacked villages in Shilluk and rebel positions, in violation of the cease-fire.

Separately, rebellion has broken out in the west of the country, where rebels in Darfur took up arms in February 2003. They also say they are fighting for a greater share of power and wealth in Sudan , but they aren’t included in the peace process taking place in Kenya.

Augustburger said he was concerned that there could be other crises similar to those in Darfur and Upper Nile.

“We are extremely worried that there could be a link between the conflicts,” he said.

“We were told that there are a lot of dissatisfied groups in Sudan who are out of any kind of agreement, many people who do not see leaders in the south as their leaders.”

Augustburger, who has just returned from an assessment mission to the Darfur region, said the Sudanese government has granted greater access to aid workers, but there is a huge problem with red tape.

“The issuing of travel permits, visas, and registration of new NGOs remains a very serious problem. We cannot wait three or four weeks in Khartoum before being allowed to deploy on the ground,” he said.

“Vehicles are blocked at harbors or airports, sometimes for three or four months. It’s a very slow process.”