70,000 Sudanese Stranded a Week Without Food

About 70,000 southern Sudanese fleeing an intense government bombing campaign against rebels have been stranded for a week without food near Uganda’s border, a U.N. official said Sunday.

The people, gathered about 30 miles east of the border town of Nimule, are medically “not very badly off, but they must be very hungry,” said Sally Burnheim, spokeswoman for Operation Lifeline Sudan’s office in Kenya.

Burnheim said bad roads and damaged bridges had kept aid workers from reaching the civilians who arrived Feb. 7 from their home region, which has been devastated by a 10-year rebellion.

The refugees are among an estimated 200,000 people who have fled Sudan’s southern Equatoria province to escape recent battles between government troops and a faction of the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army.

The United Nations, which has appealed for $280 million to help pay for aid, estimates that 2 million southern Sudanese need emergency aid this year because of the fighting.

The 70,000 Sudanese near the Uganda border fled from the towns of Atepi, Aswa and Ame after Sudan’s air force began bombing civilian camps Feb. 4, relief workers said.

An additional 110,000 people are cut off from outside assistance around the town of Mundri in western Equatoria.

The offensive and the bombings forced most aid agencies to withdraw foreign workers.

The government, which is dominated by Muslim Arabs in northern Sudan, has denied launching an offensive. It blames the fighting on splits among the rebels in the south, where black animists and Christians predominate. The insurgents took up arms in 1983 to press for increased autonomy.