INTERVIEW-Red Crescent seeks medical, logistic help in Darfur

By Andrew Quinn

JOHANNESBURG, Aug 9 (Reuters) – Food and medicine is starting to reach victims of Sudan’s Darfur crisis, but the need is so great and getting it there so difficult, that much more aid is needed, Sudan’s Red Crescent Society said on Monday.

The group’s secretary general, Omer Osman, said lack of funds was exacerbating the disaster in the region, where about one million people have been driven from their homes in what the United Nations calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

“The major challenge that we are facing is capacity … the magnitude of the humanitarian problem is so large that it makes logistics and communications very difficult,” Osman told Reuters in Johannesburg, during a meeting of international aid groups.

Government-backed Sudanese Arab militias, accused of killing and looting rampages, have driven more than one million villagers from their homes in Darfur, an area the size of France.

A United Nations Security Council resolution has given Sudan’s government about three weeks to show it is serious about disarming the militias or face possible sanctions.

Osman said more than 2,400 Sudanese Red Crescent volunteers were in place across Darfur and were helping to distribute food aid channelled by the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP).

“That operation is working. We are currently serving about 600,000 persons in Darfur with food from WFP and non-food items, including cooking utensils, blankets and tents,” he said.

“But the relief items are not enough, particularly for health care. Medicines, drugs, the supplies to organise meaningful health intervention are not available. And with the rainy season things will deteriorate.”

AID SLOW TO ARRIVE

Aid officials say that while wealthy governments have increased pressure on Sudan’s government to find a political solution to the violence in Darfur, they have been slow to contribute to relief efforts in the region.

The United Nations has fallen about $100 million short on requests for $349 million for humanitarian work in Sudan from March to December. The WFP says it has received $78.5 million of the $195 million it needs for Darfur emergency food aid in 2004.

The United Nations has received only $6.1 million to spend on clean water and sanitation, which could save thousands of lives if the current rainy season leads to outbreaks of cholera.

Osman said efforts were under way within the International Red Cross and Red Crescent network to “fill the gaps” in the relief drive — particularly drugs and medical supplies to help as many as two million people in need.

Further help was needed to coordinate the logistics of getting help to the people who need it most, he said, noting that basic tools such as communications networks were unreliable or non-existent in the area.

“The Germans and the Spanish are helping us now, but this thing is bigger than all of us,” Omar said.

“We still need to get help to more than 400,000 people … not only the displaced persons, but also the people in the war zone. The health structures are no longer intact.”

Osman said the prospect of peace talks between Khartoum and two Darfur rebel groups was bringing hope to aid workers in Darfur, where the United Nations estimates that some 50,000 people have been killed.

But he said even if the violence stopped immediately it would take months or even years to restore peoples’ livelihoods.

“I think there is hope now, with all the measures taking place, that people will go back home. Maybe within six months time, maybe within a year’s time, people will return. But until then, they are going to need our help.”