Steve
Stephen Philion Lecturer/PhD Candidate Department of Sociology 2424 Maile Way Social Sciences Bldg. # 247 Honolulu, HI 96822
On Sun, 20 Feb 2000, Ulhas Joglekar wrote:
> 19 February 2000
>
> UN launches appeal for 1.7m hungry Sudanese
> NAIROBI: The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) appealed on Friday for $58
> million to feed 1.7 million hungry Sudanese until the end of the year.
> Most of the needy are in the south, a region devastated by civil war where
> famine killed at least 60,000 people in 1998, the agency said.
> "Hundreds of thousands of southern Sudanese are still at risk of hunger and
> malnutrition," WFP's Sudan country director Mohamed Saleheen said in a
> statement.
> "The families that survived the famine are amongst the poorest in the
> population. For them, the fine line between survival and recovery remains a
> fragile one," he said.
> Even in areas where rainfall has been ideal for cultivation, insecurity has
> driven people from their homes and fields, while floods have been a problem
> in other areas, WFP said.
> Where food needs are greatest, a combination of fighting and bans on
> humanitarian flights by the government has sometimes prevented the WFP from
> feeding the needy, the agency said.
> Rebels from the mainly Christian and animist south of Sudan have been
> fighting the Islamist government for greater autonomy for 17 years. The
> picture is complicated by widespread and unpredictable inter-factional
> fighting.
> In northern Bahr el Ghazal, the region worst hit by famine in 1998, militia
> raids and flooding mean hundreds of thousands of families will be dependent
> on food aid this year.
> Fighting in the oil-rich region of Western Upper Nile ensured that 30 to 40
> percent of the population had no harvest at all at the end of 1999.
> "While conflict continues, a return to famine remains an ever present
> spectre," said Saleheen. (Reuters)
> For reprint rights: Times Syndication Service
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> © Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. 2000.
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