Civil War: Politics Block Relief Efforts to Sudan

While well-fed armies fight, starving civilians seek refuge in nearby Ethiopia.

Four years ago, the world was horrified by the devastation Ethiopians suffered from drought and famine. Today, another famine is killing hundreds daily in Sudan, but this one is different. Civil war, not natural forces, is at its root.

A 30-year-old conflict between the Muslim rulers in northern Sudan and the Christian and animist Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) in the south was inflamed in 1983 when Muslim fundamentalists gained government control and imposed strict Muslim law over the entire country. At that time, the military tactics between the north and south shifted from guns to food.

By preventing food from reaching the south, northern officials hope to stave off rebel forces. In turn, the SPLA is starving and terrorizing southerners, hoping to create chaos in government-held cities by overcrowding them with refugees.

Ironically, neither army suffers from hunger; the victims of the war-induced famine are the Sudanese. Although the land is fertile, close to 500,000 people have starved to death in just this past year. To escape the SPLA, more than three million southerners are abandoning their ruined harvests and heading for refugee camps in northern Sudan or Ethiopia. Following trails littered with corpses, the refugees find overcrowded camps plagued by disease, and severe food and clean-water shortages.

Trying To Help

Christian relief groups hold a tenuous position in Sudan. In February 1988, several organizations, including World Vision International and Lutheran World Federation, were expelled from the country for attempting to provide aid to both the north and the south. Today, however, these groups continue helping through other channels. Both World Vision and Lutheran World Federation have moved their Sudan offices to Nairobi, Kenya, and use Sudan agencies to distribute food. World Vision plans to donate 270 tons of food this year to the refugees in Juba, as well as to children in Yei and the rebel-held community of Kapoeta.

World Relief, another Christian organization, focused its relief efforts on aiding the 1.5 million left homeless after the debilitating Blue Nile floods last summer. This organization helped 35,000 in the hardest-hit areas of Khartoum and Omdurman through distribution centers in local Church of Christ facilities. Since then, World Relief has joined with Immanuel International and World Relief Canada to form the Fellowship for African Relief, which now assists Sudanese refugees.

Larry Jones, director of Feed the Children, found his recent visit to southern Sudan the most politically challenging of any relief mission. “This trip had me walking the tightest rope I’ve ever walked,” Jones said. “Feed the Children’s policy is to look for a way that hasn’t been tried yet, but in this country we do go through official channels to ask for permission.”

Government permission includes agreement from Sudanese Ambassador Hassan El Balshir, signatures from northern Sudan officials, and approval from the rebel army to allow the transporters safe passage.

Feed the Children provided food and medicine to aid some 100,000 refugees in Khartoum living in burlap tents and mud huts. The organization also transported 15 tons of powdered milk to Ethiopian refugees on the eastern Sudan border. Jones’s efforts to reach the south were curtailed by increasing unrest, but three truckloads of Feed the Children donations distributed by SudanCall managed to reach starving southerners in Abyei.

Pressure From The U.S.

Lately, U.S. officials and private groups have tried to develop public awareness of Sudan. On Congressman Frank R. Wolf’s (R-Va.) return from Sudan in January, he recommended the U.S. government urge a cease-fire agreement and open roads to relieve starvation pressures. The Christian congressman also advised that the U.S. encourage both fair aid distribution between the north and the south and permission for private relief organizations to move without interference.

Because the U.S. has begun to recognize Sudan’s plight, some relief organizations feel their jobs may become easier. “International pressure to end starvation tactics and the civil war will help us gain the freedom we need to distribute food to both sides,” states Larry Jones.

Drawing world attention to Sudan cannot come too quickly. As the April rainy season approaches, relief organizations struggle to transport as much food, medicine, blankets, and milk as the government will permit.

According to World Vision spokesman Bruce Brander, “The spring flooding paralyzes Sudan; there are no paved roads so transport vehicles are useless. This is a last opportunity to provide supplies to the starving, because after the flooding begins, the situation is hopeless.”

By Karen Blomquist.

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