‘Humanitarian perfect storm’ brewing in southern Sudan, warns UN official

About 40 percent of southern Sudanese are facing "humanitarian perfect storm" said a UN official today adding that spiralling tribal fighting, massive food cap and budget shortfall are behind this critical situation.

Ms. Lise Grande, the Deputy Resident Humanitarian Coordinator in Southern Sudan in a press conference held Wednesday in Khartoum told reporters that the "Southern Sudan is facing an almost unmanageable set of problems." She stressed three factors led to this difficult situation.

Since the independence of the country in 1956, the southern Sudan remained undeveloped due to the different civil wars in the region. After the signing of a peace agreement in 2005, the semi-autonomous region did not get the expected international support. Besides allegations of corruption that harmed its image, much of the international efforts are focused on Darfur.

"We are seeing a convergence of factors in the south that are putting at least 40 percent of the entire population of southern Sudan at real risk," said the UN deputy humanitarian coordinator in Southern Sudan.

According to the fifth census results southern Sudan population are estimated at 8,260,490. So the 40% mentioned by the UN official means that over three million people are concerned by the humanitarian crisis, and puts southern Sudan in a situation, to some extent, similar to Darfur.

"Since January of this year, more than 2,000 people have died in inter-tribal violence and more than 250,000 people have been displaced across the ten states of Southern Sudan," said Grande to underline the disastrous impact of the tribal fighting in in southern Sudan.

She further pointed out that these clashes seem endless because one attack leads to another "resulting in a spiral of attack and counter-attack."

Besides, the security concern, the UN humanitarian said the food deficit in southern Sudan is also caused by the late rains.

"The rains necessary for the first harvest have failed — which will extend the hunger gap from June all the way through October, when it normally ends in August," she further said.

Ms. Grande also said that the semi-autonomous government has been deeply affected by the loss of 40% of its oil revenues. She further said southern Sudan authorities were not able to take over the responsibility from NGOs and UN agencies for large parts of the social safety net as intended.

She disclosed that this financial shortfall occurred at a time when many of the NGOs had "planned to hand-over this work and therefore do not have sufficient funding to continue."

On the overall humanitarian situation in southern Sudan, the UN official said more than 90% of the population were living on less than a dollar a day and 1.2 million people in Southern Sudan are food deficit and will need assistance during 2009.

Also she added that one out of seven women who became pregnant would probably die of pregnancy related complications and there were only 10 certified midwives in southern Sudan.

To face the humanitarian crisis "22,000 tons of additional food was anticipated to be needed to respond to the food gap. Half of this will be for Jonglei state alone, one of the states hardest-hit by insecurity,"

"I know that there is a lot of attention to Darfur and this is deserved but the South deserves much more than it is receiving, particularly when the CPA itself is entering its critical stage," she said.

Source: http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article32115