After government retaliation, over 1 million face starvation in Sudan Stephen C. Webster

Published: Thursday March 5, 2009





Print This Email This Even before the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for the president of Sudan for alleged atrocities against his own people, the country's government was issuing caustic warnings to International aid agencies that they would not be "protected" should the court proceed.



On Wednesday, 10 of the leading humanitarian groups in Sudan, including Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) -- Doctors Without Borders -- announced their departure.



"The move has put the supply of food to 1.1 million people in doubt, as the UNs World Food Programme scrambles to find lorries to deliver sacks of grain," reported the Times Online. "It had been using four of the expelled charities to get food to people in need."



"Charities reported that their bank accounts were being frozen. Doctors with Médicins sans Frontières were trying to contain two deadly outbreaks of meningitis before being expelled. Their clinics have closed."



"[U]nfortunately, Medecins Sans Frontieres is just part of a pattern now that's been established," reported Phillip Williams, a correspondent for the Australian Broadcasting Company. "... [Ten] organisations have been asked to leave - or ordered to leave, I should say, including Oxfam, which feeds 600,000 people, Mercy Corp., Save the Children, Norwegian Refugee Council, International Rescue Committee, just some of those. They've been given 24 hours to leave the country, and they've already started leaving the area. So, the big question mark: who is going to look after all those people now?"



"With the loss of these NGOs, 1.1 million people will be without food aid, 1.1 million will be without health care, and over 1 million will be without potable water," Catherine Bragg, the U.N.'s deputy emergency relief coordinator, told the Associated Press.



The massive need will be placed in the lap of 2,600 local Sudanese aid groups, AP reported, which have almost no hope of helping everyone.



Over 2.7 million people have been displaced since 2003 due to fighting in the region. According to the United Human Rights Council, over 400,000 Sudanese have died.



Lacking an actual International police force, the arrest warrant for President Omar Hassan al-Bashir will not be easily served, reported Reuters.



"The Hague-based ICC depends on governments, mainly those of the suspects it indicts, to enforce its wishes," the news agency said.



"The ICC arrest warrant further complicates an already difficult situation in the country," reported AP. "Analysts say that the fallout from the indictment could also spill over into implementation of the north-south peace agreement, leading to even more difficulties in the beleaguered nation."



"Should that agreement fall apart, you could have a crisis that will ultimately dwarf what has happened in Darfur," Jennifer Cooke, head of the Africa program at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the wire service.



"The United States has already officially labeled the crisis in Darfur, Sudan 'genocide' and the United Nations has called it 'the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today,'" said the UHRC.



Activist group Save Darfur said it planned protests in New York City and Washington, D.C. for Wednesday and Thursday. The group encourages charitable giving and volunteering as a means of aiding the Sudanese people.





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