Sudan: Sudanese Refugees in South Sudan Caught Between Two Wars

South Sudan's brutal conflict has throttled the supply of food to Sudanese refugees in the remote northeast of the country, fuelling tensions and hunger that have triggered a deadly crime wave and prompted thousands to return to the war-zone from which they fled.

Some 126,000 Sudanese refugees housed in four camps in Maban County, Upper Nile State, are caught between an intensifying war in their homeland and the fighting that broke out in December between forces loyal to South Sudanese President Salva Kiir and those of his former deputy, Riek Machar.

While the conflict has yet to reach the camps, it has cut off access to Maban, triggering a food crisis that must compete for the attention of aid agencies already swamped by the urgent needs of 1.5 million others uprooted by the recent violence.

"We are sitting on dynamite here," Adan Ilmi, the top UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) official in Maban, told IRIN. "Any slight thing can create serious conflict between the refugees and the host community, among the refugees themselves, or against the humanitarian agencies."

Refugees poured into Maban in 2011 after the Sudanese government launched a military offensive against rebels from the Sudan People's Liberation Army - North (SPLA-N) in Sudan's South Kordofan and Blue Nile regions. Sudanese warplanes have reportedly stepped up their bombing campaign this year, drawing condemnation^[1] from the USA.

While safe from the bombardment in neighbouring Blue Nile, camp-dwellers have faced months of meagre food rations as UN agencies have struggled to feed and provide basic services to displaced people across a country with few all-weather roads or airstrips, and in the midst of a brutal and unpredictable conflict.

Fighting in the northeast has prevented the UN World Food Program (WFP) from trucking in supplies stockpiled in neighbouring Ethiopia; insecurity also halted barge traffic on the Nile River - a key transport artery in the rainy season now under way; airdrops from Ethiopia were hamstrung by a fuel shortage; and a hastily chartered C-130 aircraft can deliver only 40 percent of the 2,200 tons needed in Maban every month.

According to WFP, the camps received enough rations for only seven days in March, 10 days in April, and 20 days in May. A 15-day ration was distributed in early June, with WFP hoping to deliver more before the end of the month.

References

1. ^{^} condemnation (www.reuters.com)