U.S. Urges Sudan Truce So 3,000 Tons of Food Can Be Delivered

The Agency for International Development is urging a “food truce” in southern Sudan’s civil war to allow delivery of 3,000 metric tons of food to that famine-stricken region.

“In the interest of fundamental humanity, we strongly urge the declaration and enforcement of a food truce to ensure safe passage of commodities these innocent people must have to survive,” AID Administrator M. Peter McPherson said Thursday. He proposed that the truce provide safe passage for a team of experts to assess the severity of locust infestations threatening crops in Sudan and neighboring African nations.

The World Hunger Year, a nonprofit educational organization, estimates that 2 million to 3 million people are in danger of starving in southern Sudan, Ethiopia’s western neighbor, because of lingering drought and a major locust outbreak. A rebellion by predominantly black Christian Sudanese against the northern Arab and Muslim majority is blocking effective famine relief efforts in the south.

Testifying Thursday before the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry subcommittee on agricultural policy, an AID official said that, although some Sudanese areas produce surplus food, the food is not reaching southern Sudan.

“Without a food truce, there is not a possibility of getting relief workers into the area,” testified Julia Cheng Bloch, assistant administrator of AID’s Food for Peace and voluntary assistance bureau. Sudan is the second largest African recipient of U.S. aid after Egypt.

Rudy Von Bernuth, director of planning and program operations at CARE, testified that its Sudanese relief effort delivered $90 million in aid during the recent food crisis and reached 1.5 million people last year. But he said the war has blocked programs in southern Sudan.

The U.N. Office for Emergency Operations in Africa has reported that increased rebel activity has reduced food deliveries to the south. Several truck drivers taking food into the area have been killed.

In addition, the AID office said, locust swarms have been sighted in areas surrounding southern Sudan and that without firsthand assessment by a locust control group, infestations could further drain the area’s food supply.

Bloch said that overall African food demand has increased dramatically and that, since the early 1980s, the region has absorbed half of the world’s food aid.

Although the United States approved more than $1.6 billion in food aid during the African famine of 1984-86, Bloch said that Africa will remain “a major focus of our emergency food efforts in the foreseeable future.” Those efforts will include $350 million of AID money for crop research.