U.S. Will Supply Military Helicopters to Distribute Food in Sudan

For the first time, U.S. military helicopters will be used to distribute food in famine-stricken Sudan, where recent rains have washed out many roads and railroad tracks but brought no relief to starving villagers, aid officials announced Friday.

Three cargo helicopters will begin a three-month airlift in western Sudan within two weeks, M. Peter McPherson, administrator of the Agency for International Development, said at a news briefing. He said that U.S. military personnel will fly the craft, for which AID will spend $3 million.

“There is a worsening situation in western Sudan,” McPherson said. “The rains have come, and it is very difficult” to get food through for distribution.

U.S. officials suggested the idea of using military helicopters to help food delivery and the Khartoum government accepted, McPherson said. Asked if the Sudanese had expressed any reservations about introducing military equipment and personnel into their country, he replied, “I think their position is, ‘We’ve got to get our people fed.’ ”

No Concern Over Libya

Although the helicopters will fly near Sudan’s northwest border with Libya, an avowed enemy of the United States, the AID administrator discounted the possibility of any incidents with the regime of Col. Moammar Kadafi arising from their use.

“They’re being dispatched for humanitarian relief purposes,” McPherson said. “I don’t see this connected at all with anything else except the humanitarian mission.”

He said that one-third of Sudan’s 22 million inhabitants need food and that the western region suffers “the most immediate starvation problem in the country.” In the west alone, where distribution is dependent on an unreliable rail system, 500 tons of food a day are needed simply to prevent “substantial starvation,” he added.

Generally, food sent to Sudan from other nations is delivered by ship to Port Sudan, on the Red Sea in the northeastern part of the country, where 200,000 tons await distribution, McPherson said. About 10,000 tons of food a day are taken south in trucks to Kosti, loaded on trains and transported to Nyala, a main distribution center in west-central Sudan. But, because of logistics problems, only about 600 to 700 tons a day actually reach starving villagers.

‘Where Trucks Can’t Go’

From Nyala, McPherson said, the helicopters will “fly where trucks can’t go.” The helicopters, which will carry about 30 tons a day, will augment seven fixed-wing planes provided by the European Economic Community, he said.

AID also will fund a three-month, $4-million support package of runway lighting and communications and ground assistance for the European planes, McPherson announced.

Although this will be the first use of U.S. military helicopters in the African relief effort, McPherson said that American fixed-wing aircraft--both military and civilian--have been used in Somalia, Mozambique and Sudan.

Sudan is about the size of the part of the United States east of the Mississippi River. Since November, it has received 1 million tons of food--sorghum, wheat, flour, vegetable oil and other items--from the United States, McPherson said. Total U.S. aid to Sudan in fiscal 1985, including food and other disaster supplies, exceeds $278 million.

Ethiopia--also with bad roads and a shortage of vehicles--suffers transportation problems similar to Sudan’s. But McPherson said he did not know if military helicopters would be used there or elsewhere.