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U.S. Official Fears Famine in Sudan This Year
NAIROBI, July 23 (IslamOnline and News Agencies) - A senior U.S. official has warned that parts of Sudan could soon face a crop failure comparable to the catastrophic mid-80's drought that cost 250,000 lives, news agencies reported.
The U.S. aid chief, Andrew Natsios - speaking at the end of the first U.S. visit of its kind to Sudan for 12 years - said that failed rains threatened famine in parts of the north, while civil war was creating hunger in the south.
Natsios told reporters in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, that if the crops failed this year, then there was the possibility of a catastrophe next year, BBC's online service reported.
"If the crop fails this year, and there is no food next year, then we will face something like the great Sahelian drought," Natsios told reporters in the Kenyan capital Nairobi.
He was referring to a drought from 1984 to 1985, in which a quarter of a million people lost their lives to Sudan's worst famine in more than two decades.
Natsios was speaking after a seven-day visit to assess the humanitarian situation in Sudan, ravaged by 18 years of civil war between the government and rebels from the mainly Christian and animist south.
He said the lowlands in the Nuba mountains, one of the most fertile areas in Sudan, had been turned into a "no man's land," with fields left fallow as people sought shelter in the hills.
"If there is no humanitarian access, the analysis that has been done in those areas indicates there will be a rapid deterioration in food security and the death rates will go up," Natsios said.
Natsios crossed the front lines in the civil war, visiting rebel-held areas in the south and meeting the leader of the Sudan People's Liberation Army rebel movement, John Garang.
The rebels claim that exploitation of oil in the last few years has fuelled the conflict, allowing the government to allegedly buy more weapons - charges that the Sudanese capital of Khartoum denies.
Sudanese-U.S. relations have long been tense - with the United States calling Sudan a "state sponsor of terrorism" - but the atmosphere has slightly changed under President George W. Bush.
In May, the U.S. sent its first food aid to victims of drought in the north since the military coup in Khartoum in 1989.
And during Natsios' trip, the Sudanese government announced it would ease restrictions on future visits by U.S. officials.
Natsios said his team would soon assess the October harvest to see whether more aid would be needed, naming the drought-stricken Red Sea hills and parts of Northern Darfur as the most needy areas in the north.
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