SPLM-N demands discussions on how to conduct vaccination campaign for children
June 6, 2013 (KHARTOUM) – The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement –North (SPLM-N) said ready for a polio vaccination and vitamin A distribution campaign that two UN agencies intend to carry out in its controlled areas, and demanded to negotiate how to carry out this operation and provided to exclude Sudanese from this operation.
SPLM-N secretary general Yasir Arman on Thursday announced that he had discussed the with Valerie Amos, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, this campaign which targets about 150,000 children under 5 years in Blue Nile and South Kordofan.
Arman renewed SPLM-N’s commitment for the vaccination and stressed that because of the war the two parties have to declare humanitarian cessation of hostilities for one week or more according to the needs of the operation.
Without any mention to the previous position of his group to carry the campaign from Kenya and Ethiopia, Arman further added in a statement he extended to Sudan Tribune they are willing to discuss ” the modalities of bringing the logistics of the campaign from a location that is agreed to by the two parties”.
However, he stressed their rejection to allow members of the Sudanese government Humanitarian Action Commission (HAC) to have any access to the SPLM-N held areas.
“It is an open secret that HAC, the humanitarian relief wing of the Sudan government is an agency controlled by Sudan security, and it cannot possibly have anything to do with the areas under the control of the SPLM-N”, Arman said.
One the other hand, he proposed that the SPLM-N humanitarian team can extend the necessary support to “resolve all technical issues in order for the vaccination campaign to start”.
Amos last May was in Sudan during three days where she visited a camp of displaced people near El-Fasher in North Darfur, as in Khartoum she met Sudanese officials including president Omer Al-Bashir to discuss the humanitarian situation in the rebel held areas in South Kordofan and blue Nile states.
The armed conflict between the two parties since June 2011, affected some one million persons who were forced to move from the conflict areas to other Sudanese regions, Ethiopia and South Sudan.
Khartoum accuses the SPLM-N of holding civilians hostage in its areas and rejects to allow humanitarian access to the rebel areas saying the food brought by international aid workers would benefit to the SPLM-N fighters.
UN agencies, African Union and Arab League persuaded the warring parties to signed a humanitarian deal in August 2012 to reach the needy civilians in the rebel controlled areas but they disagreed on how to implement it. The SPLM-N underlined it had also signed another agreement with the tripartite panel in February 2012 but Khartoum rejected it.
During a first round of direct talks held in Ethiopia last April, the Sudanese government delegation refused to discuss a cessation of hostilities agreement allowing to reach affected population saying that a political solution will pave the way for the humanitarian assistance.
Arman in his statement reiterated the SPLM-N proposal for a humanitarian cessation of hostilities stressing “The civilian populations should not be punished by the lack of the common political agenda between the two parties”.
(ST)