UN Begins Airlift of Stranded South Sudanese from Sudan Capital
(VOA) A new operation to airlift nearly 1,400 South Sudanese stranded in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, starts Tuesday. The airlift is organized by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) in collaboration with the governments of Sudan and South Sudan. Planes are to take off from Khartoum and fly to Aweil in South Sudan’s NorthernBahr El GhazalState. The International Organization for Migration reports two 47-seat charter flights will take off every day over the next two weeks. It says the planes will be carrying what it calls extremely vulnerable South Sudanese individuals and their families to their newly independent country. IOM spokesman Jumbe Omari Jumbe says the 1,370 people who eventually will be returned home are among some 40,000 other South Sudanese who have been stranded in the north for the past two years. He says they have been living under precarious conditions out in the open since 2010 waiting to be transported home.
Further Reading: http://www.voanews.com/content/sudan-airlift-bahr-elghazal/1540610.html
No crisis in South Kordofan, Sudan says as aid deal lapses
(Daily News, AFP) There is no humanitarian crisis in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states, Sudan said on Tuesday as an international plan to get aid into the area expired without any food reaching the hungry. Despite months of talks about how to get assistance into rebel-held areas of the two border states, where fighting began more than a year ago, the number of people affected by the war has continued to increase. More than 240,000 have now sought refuge in neighboring South Sudan and Ethiopia, the UN said last Friday. Including the refugees, more than 900,000 people are estimated to be displaced or severely affected, the UN has said, noting reports of serious food shortages and lack of adequate health care in rebel-held areas. “There is no humanitarian crisis in South Kordofan and Blue Nile but there is a humanitarian need and it has to be taken care of, especially in the health sector and drinking water,” Sudan’s top aid official, Sulaiman Abdul Rahman, told reporters on Tuesday. He confirmed the expiry of a memorandum, reached with the UN, Arab League and African Union, which was supposed to allow for aid delivery throughout the warzone, including to rebel-held areas.
Further Reading: http://dailynewsegypt.com/2012/11/06/no-
Sudan must further cut fuel subsidies despite public opposition to austerity measures
(Fox News, Associated Press) The International Monetary Fund has urged Sudan to cut fuel subsidies further, despite public anger over austerity measures meant to counter the country’s economic crisis. The IMF did not offer any financial assistance, but economic help is on the horizon from another direction — South Sudan. The two countries signed a deal in September to restart South Sudanese oil exports through pipelines that run through Sudan to its Red Sea port. Exports are expected to resume by the end of the year. Sudan’s loss of its main oil-producing territory with the independence of South Sudan last year, coupled with the loss of revenues from shipping the oil, were a one-two punch to Sudan’s fragile economy. Sudan’s original attempt to cut subsidies led to riots in Khartoum, the capital, because the result doubled the prices of fuel and some food products. Now the IMF is saying that those subsidy reductions did not go far enough. The IMF said in a report released Monday that the remaining subsidies affect the government’s “competing spending priorities.” The report said that fuel product subsides amounted to more than three-quarters of tax revenues last year and have been on the rise since South Sudan seceded.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/11/06/
Sudan rebels say shell army stronghold in oil state capital
(Reuters) Sudanese rebels said they had shelled the military’s headquarters in the main city of the oil-producing South Kordofan state near the border with South Sudan after coming under air and ground attack. Sudan’s army has been fighting SPLM-North rebels in the state since June last year, shortly before South Sudan seceded from Sudan, but the South Kordofan capital Kadugli has been largely isolated from the fighting until the past month. Khartoum accuses South Sudan of backing the rebels, an allegation Western diplomats find credible despite Juba’s denials. SPLM-North spokesman Arnu Lodi said rebels shelled the military’s headquarters in Kadugli with mortars and other heavy weapons late on Monday in response to air strikes and ground attacks against their positions. Witnesses also reported shells falling in the city. Sudan’s military spokesman did not immediately respond to phone calls seeking comment. Events in Sudan’s border states are hard to verify as the government rarely allows foreign media to travel there.
Further Reading: http://af.reuters.com/article/sudanNews/idAFL5E8M67OL20121106
