Rebels hinder aid delivery in southern Sudan â€" Egeland
Apr 06, 2006
<b>TEREKEKE, Monday</b> - Ugandan rebel attacks and a delay in aid payment are threatening the delivery of assistance to millions in need in southern Sudan, a UN official has said.
TEREKEKE, Monday - Ugandan rebel attacks and a delay in aid payment are threatening the delivery of assistance to millions in need in southern Sudan, a UN official has said.
Jan Egeland (left), UN under-secretary for humanitarian affairs, is on an Africa tour also scheduled to include a visit to Sudan’s troubled western Darfur region.
But that visit was in doubt on Monday due to a disagreement with Khartoum officials.
Speaking in the southern town of Terekeke, Egeland said LRA rebels were attacking civilians and aid workers.
“The security of humanitarian workers is precarious,†Egeland said, urging the governments of Uganda, Sudan and the DR Congo to stop the attacks.
The cult-like LRA, which has waged a 20-year-long insurgency in northern Uganda, has bases in Sudan and Congo.
Former southern Sudanese rebels from the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) and the Khartoum government signed a peace deal last year to end Africa’s longest civil war.
Hundreds of thousands of southern Sudanese, who fled fighting during a war that claimed two million lives, had returned home but were still in danger from the LRA, Egeland said.
Humanitarian work could be paralysed if the LRA is not stopped, he said.
An attack in late March on a UN site in Yambio in southern Sudan, most likely by LRA rebels, pushed peacekeepers into their first deadly exchange of fire.
Egeland urged the international community to deliver pledges of up to $4.5b to reconstruct Sudan after the civil war.
“We have only one fifth of what we need this year and the rains are coming,†he said.
The rainy season begins in May and turns dirt tracks into quicksand, making aid delivery by road virtually impossible.
Ends
Jan Egeland (left), UN under-secretary for humanitarian affairs, is on an Africa tour also scheduled to include a visit to Sudan’s troubled western Darfur region.
But that visit was in doubt on Monday due to a disagreement with Khartoum officials.
Speaking in the southern town of Terekeke, Egeland said LRA rebels were attacking civilians and aid workers.
“The security of humanitarian workers is precarious,†Egeland said, urging the governments of Uganda, Sudan and the DR Congo to stop the attacks.
The cult-like LRA, which has waged a 20-year-long insurgency in northern Uganda, has bases in Sudan and Congo.
Former southern Sudanese rebels from the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) and the Khartoum government signed a peace deal last year to end Africa’s longest civil war.
Hundreds of thousands of southern Sudanese, who fled fighting during a war that claimed two million lives, had returned home but were still in danger from the LRA, Egeland said.
Humanitarian work could be paralysed if the LRA is not stopped, he said.
An attack in late March on a UN site in Yambio in southern Sudan, most likely by LRA rebels, pushed peacekeepers into their first deadly exchange of fire.
Egeland urged the international community to deliver pledges of up to $4.5b to reconstruct Sudan after the civil war.
“We have only one fifth of what we need this year and the rains are coming,†he said.
The rainy season begins in May and turns dirt tracks into quicksand, making aid delivery by road virtually impossible.
Ends