Sudan: Clashes in Darfur force 57,000+ to flee to Chad - UNHCR says food and water urgently needed

Report from News24 by Agence France-Presse (AFP)

Published 28 January 2020 18:00

Title: Clashes in Darfur force at least 57 000 to flee: UN

Violence in Sudan's West Darfur region has forced 57 000 people to flee their homes over the past month, including 11 000 who have crossed into Chad, the UN refugee agency said Tuesday [Feb 18].

In Chad, UNHCR spokesperson Babar Baloch said the refugees were scattered in several villages along the border.

"The conditions are dire. Most are staying in the open or under makeshift shelters, with little protection from the elements. Food and water are urgently needed," he said.

Baloch said that UNHCR and other organisations were providing some humanitarian assistance but added: "The rate of refugee arrivals risks outpacing our capacity".

UNHCR estimates that the number of refugees fleeing to Chad from West Darfur "could reach 30 000 in the coming weeks as tensions persist," he said.

The latest fighting in West Darfur was between an African tribe called Masalit and an Arab tribe called Rizeigat - two groups which have often fought over the years since the Darfur conflict first erupted in 2003.

The violence, which left dozens dead, is the latest example of fighting in Darfur between peasant farming tribes, which are mostly non-Arab, and nomadic pastoralists, who are mostly Arab.

"UNHCR teams on the ground are hearing accounts of people fleeing after their villages, houses and properties were attacked, many burnt to the ground," Baloch said.

He said UNHCR wanted "the international community's support for the transitional government of Sudan in addressing the root causes of the conflict in Darfur".

Darfur - made up of five states - spiralled into conflict in 2003. [...]

Although the unrest has reduced greatly in recent years, there are still regular outbreaks of violence.

View Original: https://m.news24.com/Africa/News/clashes-in-darfur-force-at-least-57-000-to-flee-un-20200128

- - -

Image from Voice of America News (VOA) report by LISA SCHLEIN dated 28 Jan 2020:

'Violence in Sudan’s Darfur State Sends Thousands Fleeing to Chad'

https://www.voanews.com/africa/violence-sudans-darfur-state-sends-thousands-fleeing-chad

£18M UK aid for South Sudan’s humanitarian catastrophe: 7M need aid, 2M on brink of famine

SOUTH SUDAN is a humanitarian catastrophe and vulnerable people face the daily threat of starvation.  There are currently 7 million people in need of humanitarian assistance and nearly 2 million people on the brink of famine in South Sudan, where food insecurity is at its worst level in the past 8 years.  Hundreds of thousands of people in South Sudan will receive lifesaving food and water thanks to new UK aid. 

Press Release

From UK Department for International Development (DFID)

Dated Wednesday 14 August 2019

UK aid to provide vital food to hundreds of thousands of people living on the edge of famine in South Sudan 

LONDON, United Kingdom, August 14, 2019/APO Group/ -- Minister for Africa, Andrew Stephenson announced an extra £18 million of UK aid on his first visit in his new role, which will be given to trusted partners to help vulnerable families in desperate need.

There are currently 7 million people in need of humanitarian assistance and nearly 2 million people on the brink of famine in South Sudan, where food insecurity is at its worst level in the past 8 years.

Minister Stephenson called on the Government of South Sudan and other parties involved in the conflict to stop obstructing the delivery of aid and step up efforts to help the millions of malnourished children, families and communities get access to vital supplies.

He also called on the Government to accelerate progress on the peace process, including security sector reform, establishing an open dialogue with opposition leader Riek Machar and delivering on the $100 million they pledged to help achieve peace.

Minister for Africa, Andrew Stephenson said:

South Sudan is a humanitarian catastrophe and vulnerable people face the daily threat of starvation.

I have seen first-hand that UK aid is saving lives and today’s step up in support will deliver urgently needed food, water and health services to hundreds of thousands of people.

We call on the Government of South Sudan to immediately lift all humanitarian access restrictions and to commit more resources to provide basic services such as health and education to give people hope for the future.

With just three months until the formation of the transitional government, time is running out. Significant effort and compromise are required to fully implement the peace agreement.

While in South Sudan, Minister Stephenson visited the World Food Programme’s warehouse in Juba to see first-hand how UK aid is helping save the lives of people who have fled conflict.

He also visited the Juba Protection of Civilian’s camp to learn about the key challenges of displacement in the country, as well as meeting with British soldiers deployed to the UN Peacekeeping mission there.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Department for International Development (DFID).

SOURCE:  https://www.africa-newsroom.com/press/uk-aid-to-provide-vital-food-to-hundreds-of-thousands-of-people-living-on-the-edge-of-famine-in-south-sudan?lang=en

Kiir, UK Minister for Africa Andrew Stephenson discuss implementation of South Sudan peace accord

Article from and by Sudan Tribune

Published Wednesday 14 August 2019

Kiir, British minister discuss implementation of peace accord

August 13, 2019 (JUBA) - South Sudan’s President, Salva Kiir and the British Foreign Office Minister for Africa, Andrew Stephenson on Tuesday to discuss the implementation of the 2018 peace accord.

The British Foreign Office Minister for Africa, Andrew Stephenson shaking hands with President Salva Kiir in Juba, August 13, 2019 (PPU)

The meeting took place in the South Sudanese capital, Juba.

The two leaders, president’s office said, discussed several issues, including the progress in the implementation of the revitalized peace deal and strengthening bilateral ties between the two nations.

"Andrew reiterated the United Kingdom’s commitment towards supporting the government and the people of South Sudan in achieving lasting peace and development for the country," partly reads the statement from the presidency.

Stephenson is expected to meet other senior government officials and also visit British-funded projects in the world’s youngest nation.

Last month, the Troika, of which Britain is a member alongside Norway and United State, called for immediate implementation of South Sudan’s peace agreement signed in September last year.

The Troika, in a statement issued, also reaffirmed their full commitment to the peace process in the war-hit East African nation.

South Sudan plunged into civil war in December 2013 when President Salva Kiir accused the country’s former vice-president, Riek Machar, of plotting a coup.

In September last year, however, South Sudan’s arch-rivals signed a revitalized peace agreement to end the country’s civil war that has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced more than 2 million.

The country’s rival parties, in May, agreed on a six-month extension to implement next steps in the fragile peace agreement. The latest extension came after the main opposition group threatened to boycott formation of a unity government on May 12.

Visit original article here: http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article67936

More than 2,000 people killed in South Sudan since Jan 2009 -UN

A humanitarian emergency is brewing in South Sudan warns UN Deputy Coordinator for South Sudan, Lise Grande.

Ms Grande said five states in southern Sudan are at risk: Jonglei, Upper Nile, Western Equatoria, Eastern Equatoria and Northern Bahr El-Ghazal.

From United Nations Radio by Jocelyne Sambira, Thursday, 13 August 2009:
A humanitarian emergency is brewing in South Sudan warns UN Senior Official

UN Deputy Coordinator for South Sudan is warning that the country is in a critical phase due to severe food shortages and mass displacements caused by escalating inter-tribal conflicts.

"Since January of this year, more than two thousand people in Southern Sudan have been killed as a result of inter-tribal conflict and a quarter of a million people - two hundred and fifty thousand people have been displaced across the ten states."

Liz Grande told reporters in Khartoum on Wednesday that the situation is getting worse because of plummeting oil prices, forcing the Government of South Sudan (GOSS) to put a halt to much needed development plans.

"Probably no other government in the region has suffered as much from the global meltdown as Southern Sudan. It has lost a staggering 40% of the revenues that it expected."

The UN senior official estimates that 85 million dollars is the bare minimum needed to keep people alive in that region and much of the humanitarian funding has dried up.

The Secretary-General has warned that the recent inter-tribal fighting in South Sudan is destabilizing the entire country and putting at risk the progress made by the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.

Photo: Deputy Coordinator for South Sudan, Lise Grande. (UN)

From Sudan Radio Service, Thursday, 13 August 2009:
UNMIS Describes A Critical Humanitarian Situation in South Sudan

(Khartoum) – Addressing a press conference in Khartoum on Wednesday on the humanitarian situation in southern Sudan, UNMIS Deputy Resident and Humanitarian Co-coordinator for southern Sudan, Lise Grande, said rural populations that depend on agriculture for survival have been going hungry since the first of June.

[Lise Grande-English]: “Here is the bad news. The hunger gap for large part of the whole population in five critical states is going to be extended not to mid-August, but all the way through to mid October there us going to be a lot of hungry people in Southern Sudan, that hunger gap will go from early June right away through to mid-October, now, in terms of food assistance that will be required again, work is still being done right now by the World Food Programme and we can give you an indication that, remembering that ninety-six metric tonnes were already required, out of that WFP has only received eighty- thousand metric tonnes , so there is a gap of sixteen thousand metric tonnes right now. Then you add on top of that the food that is going to be required because the first harvest has failed and we are looking at the significant increase of assistance that is going to be needed. Of all the states in the south that have been hit hard, Jonglei may be the worst. We already know that the largest failure, the biggest failure in harvest is going to be precisely in that state”.

Grande said the UN agencies and humanitarian organizations in southern Sudan have asked for 412 million USD.

She said out of the requested amount what has been received is less than 60 million USD, adding that in order to save the lives of many people who are in need of food in southern Sudan, 85 million US dollars are urgently needed.

[Lise Grande]: “What is the red line? The red line is 85 million USD. You want to keep people alive in the south, 85 million USD, that is it, that is the bottom-line. More than ninety-percent of the entire population exists on less than one dollar a day. One out of every seven women that becomes pregnant is going to die. Of all of the deadly diseases in the world, there are thirteen of fourteen of them in southern Sudan. But for me there are two sets of statistics that sum up the situation in southern Sudan: the maternal mortality rate is the highest in the world, more women die during pregnancy than any place on the globe. Things are really, really, really tough in the south. Four years after the signing of the CPA, southern Sudan is facing an unimaginable set of problems. I know that a lot of attention that is given to Darfur. This is deserved, but the key point is that the south deserves much more than it is receiving, particularly now that the Comprehensive Peace Agreement is entering its critical stage”.

Grande said that throughout southern Sudan almost the entire population is facing a life-threatening situation.

[Lise Grande]: “Southern Sudan is facing crisis right now. It is caused by a combination of factors. Number one, the rain has been late, number two, the high level of insecurity and displacement that I have just described, number three there has been disruption of trade and number four, related to that has been a sharp increase in the price of food. We add all that together and we have a big food deficit. The WFP originally estimated for 2009 that 1.2 million people in southern Sudan are going to require some kind of food assistance and they appealed for ninety-six metric tonnes to do their part. We have started receiving data from hard-hit locations like Aweil in Bahr El-Ghazal. Data has indicated that the malnutrition rate was exceptional. In Aweil, the severe malnutrition rates are twice the emergency threshold."

Grande added that another factor that contributed to hunger in southern Sudan is the budget crisis. Southern Sudan has suffered a lot due to the recent drop in oil prices. The Government of southern Sudan has lost forty percent of the this year's expected revenue.

She said five states in southern Sudan are at risk: Jonglei, Upper Nile, Western Equatoria, Eastern Equatoria and Northern Bahr El-Ghazal.

Click on labels 'humanitarian disaster' and 'Jonglei' (here below) to see related reports and updates.

In southern Sudan a humanitarian disaster more serious than that in Darfur is unfolding - Important video report by Tracy McVeigh and John Domokos

Be sure to view the short video clip in the following must-read report.

Africa's longest-running civil war is over and a new country is supposed to grow out of it. But there are few schools or roads and the people live in fear of kidnap and death. Soon, Southern Sudan's humanitarian disaster could dwarf that of its neighbour Darfur.

Southern Sudan faces the 'humanitarian perfect storm'. Tracy McVeigh and John Domokos report on how guns, cattle and children are the new commodities in a region whose fragile peace could be shattered at any moment.

Tracy McVeigh and John Domokos report on the challenges facing southern Sudan.  Click here to view their important video report.

From The Observer, Sunday 21 June 2009:
Guns, children and cattle are the new currency of war in Southern Sudan
By Tracy McVeigh, chief reporter

Corline Timon shrugged her AK-47 off her shoulder and held it out in both hands to the commanding officer. Her back straight in ill-fitting fatigues, her face expressionless, the 42-year-old soldier took a step backwards; into civilian life.

The automatic rifle joined a stack of others in a pyre around rags and dried grass in a dusty military compound on the outskirts of Southern Sudan's capital city, Juba. A jerrycan of accelerant was thrown on and the pile set alight.

With this ceremony 10 days ago, 26 years after the start of Africa's longest-running civil war, and four years after a peace treaty was signed with the north, the disarming of the Sudanese People's Liberation Army, the military wing of the governing Sudanese People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), finally began.



Photo: Juba: AK-47s and uniforms of soldiers belonging to the Sudan People's Liberation Army are burned at the launch of a disarmament programme (Photograph: Tim McKulka/UN Photo)

Two days later a convoy of barges carrying UN food aid to 18,000 people displaced by fighting near the town of Akobo was attacked. At least 40 soldiers and civilians were killed, including children who jumped from the boats into the Sobat river and drowned. Last month 66 people, mainly women and children, were shot dead in their village, Torkey, in a tribal feud.

Even though the conflict with the Islamist Republic of Sudan to the north is officially over, war seems closer than peace here. And a humanitarian disaster widely thought more serious than that in neighbouring Darfur is unfolding.

It was in 2005, after two decades of bitter civil war, that the Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed between Arab-speaking Khartoum and the SPLM of the Christian and animist south. The president of Southern Sudan, Salva Kiir, who took over when John Garang, the great SPLA war hero, died just three weeks into office, is also vice-president to President Omar al-Bashir.

Bashir, with a warrant out against him from the International Criminal Court over atrocities committed in Darfur, and facing a build-up of military hostility from Chad, has a presidential election approaching. As the political agenda hots up, so does tension between north and south. Suspicions are high in the south that Khartoum would do anything to disrupt its independence referendum, agreed under the peace deal and due in 2011, even to the point of backing militias as it did in Darfur. The south has 80% of Sudan's oil and independence would nullify Khartoum's deals with foreign investors.

There are almost 50 tribes in Southern Sudan's 10 states, speaking 400 dialects. It is bigger than France, but no one aged under 40 has ever cast a vote, and a lethal mix of guns, tribal conflict, disease and displaced people is threatening to explode. It has seen nothing of the attention or celebrity campaigns that have helped Darfur. If the referendum leads to independence for the south, the new state will be born already failed.

Southern Sudan is awash with guns - 1,000 people have died in the past six months. Children are being kidnapped and traded, and cattle stolen, all against a backdrop of hunger and destitution. The government seems powerless to keep order and claims to be out of money. Last month President Kiir said oil revenue had been halved by world price slumps.

The numbers of refugees and displaced are rising steadily. Two million people have already returned from neighbouring regions, from the north, from Kenya, from Uganda, where they had fled during the war, and are arriving in towns and villages where there is no shelter, healthcare, food, sanitation, water or jobs.

With so many war-hardened former fighters and a seemingly unending supply of weapons coming in from neighbouring African countries and even, some believe, from enemies in the north keen to destabilise the south ahead of the 2011 referendum, disputes over land and animals quickly turn bloody. The lethal mix is exacerbated by a second year of drought, and by murderous incursions into border villages by the feared Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), taking advantage of the chaos to push in from Uganda.

It is, said the UN's Sudan humanitarian co-ordinator Lise Grande, "a humanitarian perfect storm". At the UN's Juba compound of block walls and razor wire, Grande says the spike in killings and child abductions is elevating a disastrous situation into a catastrophe.

"The unexpected fiscal crisis in the government is impeding its ability to provide basic services in what is one of the most remote areas on the planet.

"It is clear that international assistance and attention is making a big difference in Darfur. In the case of Southern Sudan there isn't that donor money and yet the death tolls and the scope of the problems are higher here."

Nowhere is the stagnation more apparent than in the capital city. Juba, boiling under desert temperatures, is a sprawl of refugees, returnees and aid agencies. Toyota Land Cruisers carrying multiple acronyms of international charities outnumber anything else on the two tarmac-covered roads. These cross and then peter out into pot-holed tracks that destroy the tyres and suspensions of the trucks that bring in the Ugandan market traders, with their pineapples, beans and potatoes that few can afford. The traffic brings chaos to a town where 10 years ago there were seven cars.

A few hotels have sprung up for the NGOs and the UN, and for Chinese, Kenyan and Ugandan workers here building boreholes and oil wells to drain the country of its resources. The prices are astronomical. Taxi drivers demand fares to make a London cabbie blush and dream of sending their children to school, abroad.

Even the government stays in Juba only part-time, most leaving when they can for long spells with their families in Khartoum, Kenya, Europe or the US.

"What can we do?" one minister who lives in the west asked the Observer at a party thrown by the British embassy in Juba to celebrate the Queen's birthday. "There are no schools so I can't bring my family back. There is nothing here. Even for me, coming back after the war was a difficult decision. My parents and brothers were killed in the war. My children are now strangers to Sudan, they are never going to come here, but my family died for this country. I come back as little as I can." He laughed and sank another beer: "I work for the graveyard."

The speeches at the party were full of talk of investment and building. But there are few signs of either. On one of Juba's many expanses of wasteland, 3,000 refugee families had built makeshift homes. But then the government bulldozers arrived.

"We had no warning, no time to even get our belongings out. They just came with soldiers and said they wanted the land for development," said Grace Ardlando, 35.

They razed the settlement to the ground, promising new homes. "That was three months ago," said the war-widow, who has rebuilt a shack of palm leaves and old flour sacks that won't withstand the first shower of the rainy season. "They said they would get us somewhere to live, but they haven't. With this demolition we are left with no water, no sanitation. The river makes many people sick. We had cholera here before and that is our worry."

Dr Thomas Akim, medical director of Juba teaching hospital, says it is well staffed. Despite his dogged optimism, diseases that are long eradicated even in other African countries, such as measles, polio and leprosy, are making a comeback here, to join malaria, cholera, acute respiratory disease and HIV.

Like the roads, health provision extends little beyond Juba.

"There are health centres, but they are not equipped to give services. There will be no one there and medicines, of course, are short," says Dr Akim. "It would be good if we could train personnel to staff the rural areas."

Southern Sudan has only three midwives, and one in six pregnant women die in childbirth. But none are as vulnerable as the children, born into war. The children at Gumbo, outside Juba, fear the "Lokwo dano" - people thieves.

"We were coming home from school when some men came out of the bushes in torn clothes. They were calling and offering us soda. We were very scared so we ran," said Susan Achan, 12.

Last month two of her friends were not so lucky. "We were picking mangoes," said Sebit Quintino, 13. "We saw the men, they were Murle tribe, and we shouted to each other and ran, but three were playing in the water and didn't hear. One of the boys turned up days later after managing to escape; the other two have never been seen again."



Photo: Gumbo, S. Sudan: Susan Achan and Sebit Quintino escaped a kidnapping attempt by a rival tribe. (Photograph: John Domokos/Observer, June 2009)

The boys are traded for cattle and made to work, and the girls are also sold off for a dowry of cows. Odii Odwong, 77, used to be a farmer but was forced off his land by the war. He then became a soap salesman but was forced out of his home by the LRA. Now he is a refugee living in Gumbo; the graves of his wife and son are directly outside his hut door. "We are squatters here and I have lost three of my four children. It is the children we worry about now, with all this stealing. It is a shame to see them so afraid.

"We here have been refugees in our own country for a long, long time now but things seem to get not better but much harder. There is a lot of crying going on because people have no food. I am not optimistic for the new Sudan. The Dinka and the Murle tribes are the ones we fear and they are on both sides of us. I would like to get a gun."

Guns are on the minds of a group of Bari tribesmen at Gudlle, a rural area of rich grassland north of Juba.

The possession of cattle is everything: wealth, standing, nourishment and pension. The cows will only be sold or slaughtered in dire times.

Peter Acihek doesn't even know the current market price, he thinks maybe it's 1,000 Sudanese pounds, but in fact it's closer to half that. He knows a child can be exchanged for one. Cattle are worth going to war for and their theft is a deep affront.

A few nights ago these villagers lost 100 cows, half their herd, in a night raid by Mundari tribesmen. They now keep the remaining cattle tethered close and cannot take them to the better pastures a little further away, so the cows are losing weight. "There was a lot of shooting and they took all of our cows, but luckily half of them came back to us in the confusion of the bullets," says Acihek.

In April the next village was raided by Murle tribesmen. "The soldiers took away our guns because they said they did not want a feud. Now we have lost so many cows that our children have no milk and are hungry. The cows cannot get to the best grass and they will get sick.

"It is a terrible thing that we don't have weapons to protect ourselves, but we will again get guns."

James Miyak, a Dinka man and former rebel who works in the nearby prison, has now been sent out by the soldiers to guard the Bari people's remaining cows at night.

"I will shoot them if the Mundari come back again," he says, proudly showing the civil war shrapnel scars on his chest. "You should be dead," the Observer tells him. "I will be the last man to die," he replies with a glare. "I have the gun."



Photo: Juba, S. Sudan: James Miyak, left, and Peter Acihek, centre, and an unnamed man stand with their depleted herd; a rival tribe stole their cattle in an armed raid at night (Photograph: John Domokos/Observer, June 2009)



Photo: Juba, S. Sudan: A dog waits with a malnourished child, Angelina, the daughter of James Miyak, whose Bari tribe's cattle was stolen by local tribe in a night time raid. (Photograph: Tracy McVeigh/Observer, June 2009)

Most post-conflict countries need investment to rebuild. In Southern Sudan it is needed just to build.

There is nothing here to raise from the ashes, everything needs to start from scratch, a whole country has to be brought out of the peach-coloured dust.

"Many people have migrated back to the south but now there is the same situation, the same reasons that sparked the war in Darfur. The tribal conflicts, the distancing from Khartoum, guns are very cheap and people can find them easily. Now there are signs of peace in Darfur, many weapons are coming from there too, from Chad, from maybe even sources no one might expect," said Mohamed Kashan, a Sudanese journalist in Khartoum.

"We are not casting you away," government minister Luka Monojai told the 16 SPLA soldiers being demobilised in Juba, "but reassigning you to new and important roles and duties to build a new Sudan. You must go with your heads held high, we are proud of you."

But the question of whether or not Corline Timon and her fellow soldiers can build anything out of the dust and despair of Southern Sudan or are forced to reach back to their guns remains unanswered.

A catastrophe in the making

• There is one doctor per 500,000 people and there are three surgeons in the whole country.

• Female illiteracy is 92%, compared with 62% in Darfur.

• Only 27% of girls are in school and there are 1,000 primary school pupils per teacher.

• Under the peace agreement, the Sudanese People's Liberation Army is to demobilise 180,000 soldiers, starting with women and children.

• About 3% of people have access to sanitation.

• A 15-year-old girl has a higher chance of dying during pregnancy than of completing school. One in six pregnant women die in childbirth.

• An estimated 96% of Southern Sudan's people favour independence from Khartoum. A referendum on the issue is to be held in 2011.

• Southern Sudan suffers 15 of the world's 16 deadliest diseases.

Photo: Nasir, S. Sudan:  Cattle belonging to the Nuer tribe are shrouded in dung smoke to keep away insects near the town where disputes over cattle have turned violent. (Photograph: Finbarr O'Reilly/Reuters)



Photo: Nasir, S. Sudan: Nuer tribesmen recover at a clinic after they were shot during a clash over cattle between two rival ethnic groups (Photograph: Finbarr O'Reilly/Reuters)



Photo: Nasir, S. Sudan: A Nuer tribewoman visits a clinic run by the charity Médecins Sans Frontières after receiving a gunshot wound during recent tribal violence (Photograph: Finbarr O'Reilly/Reuters 2009)



Photo: Nasir, S. Sudan: A blind Nuer woman recovers at a clinic run by the charity Médecins Sans Frontières after being shot in the arm during recent tribal violence. (Photograph: Finbarr O'Reilly/Reuters)

Photo source: Guns and disease ravage south Sudan (16 pictures)

(Hat tip to Kelsey's blog From Here to Finvara - Welcome to my world ... - 24 June 2009)

Click on label 'humanitarian disaster' (here below) to see related reports and updates.