POVERTY: SUDAN: Food crisis looms as bombs drive farmers from their fields

DAR, 22 March 2012 (IRIN)

 Photo: Peter Moszynski/IRIN
Tall pillars of smoke rise in the distance after an air raid as seen from these burnt houses in Dar, South Kordofan

Driving north across the border from South Sudan into the warring Sudanese state of South Kordofan, the landscape abruptly changes from the swamps and seasonal grasslands into the fertile foothills of the Nuba Mountains, rising gently from the plains. Each hill is topped by a village, with acorn-shaped clusters of huts perched on rocky outcrops.
In the picturesque village of Dar, women in brightly-coloured `taubs’ gather around the communal pump chatting and exchanging gossip in a scene typical across rural Africa. But on closer inspection, none of the houses have roofs: most of the village has been burned to the ground. The area is littered with spent cartridge cases, unexploded ordnance, and several wrecked tanks.
Since fighting between the Sudan Armed Forces and the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army - North (SPLM-N) broke out in June 2011, spreading later to neighbouring Blue Nile State, more than 400,000 people have been displaced.
Women in Dar said they had taken advantage of the lull in fighting that followed SPLM-N’s recent capture of Dar, descending from the caves where they had sought shelter to fetch water and try to salvage their belongings from their wrecked homes.
During this reporter’s visit, the sense of security was shattered by the growing roar of an approaching Antonov plane, sending residents fleeing. The aircraft passes by this time, dropping its rudimentary bombs elsewhere, leaving tall pillars of smoke rising in the distance.
“This is why people are going hungry,” says Mubarak Ahmed, from the Nuba Youth Association. “You can see how everyone is terrified by the bombing, so nobody is able to plant or tend their crops.”
Over a million people now live in rebel-controlled areas, cut off from the outside world, as was the case in the 1983-2005 civil war, when many in South Kordofan sided with southern rebels.

Time running out
With the rainy season due to start in a few weeks, humanitarian agencies are warning that time is running out to bring in life-saving supplies.
Local officials say the conflict has severely affected agricultural production, and estimate that the next harvest will be only 20 percent of normal, leaving most of the population dependent on outside aid. They warn that unless supplies are brought in within the next few weeks, the onset of the rains will make it virtually impossible to distribute the relief, just when the annual pre-harvest hungry season reaches its peak.



Photo: Peter Moszynski/IRIN
Nursing mothers queue to register for supplementary feeding at the Yida camp, which is home to over 20,000 Nuba refugees

A small proportion of the war-affected population has managed to cross the new border into South Sudan. Even here the refugees find little safety. Close to the border, Yida refugee camp is home to over 20,000 Nuba refugees. The camp is pitted with foxholes, rough shelters scraped out of the red earth by frantic civilians to provide protection against cross border air raids.
One nine-year-old girl had broken her collar bone whilst diving for cover in one of the many air raid shelters, incongruously placed all around the supposedly safe refugee camps.
A disabled old woman, struggling to care for five visibly traumatized grandchildren, described how they had to flee their village in the Nuba Mountains after the children's parents had been killed in a bombing raid.
Another old woman had broken ribs, and said she had been beaten by soldiers after being arrested on suspicion of attempting to flee to rebel-held areas.
International aid agencies are attempting to relocate the refugees from Yida, which was bombed in November, to a new site some 70km further south.
Although war returned to the Nuba Mountains in June 2011, the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) wound up its operations when South Sudan gained independence the following month, and its successor mission only operates in the new state, not in Sudan.

Abandoned by the UN?
Everywhere people complain they have been abandoned by the UN whilst being attacked by their own government. They ask: “Why has the international community left us in the hands of an indicted war criminal?”
Ahmed Mohammed Haroun, who was declared the winner of disputed gubernatorial elections in May 2011, is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes he allegedly committed in Darfur.
In February, the UN, the African Union and the Arab League drew up a plan to deliver humanitarian aid to the region, but Khartoum has yet to endorse it.
President Omar al Bashir is expected to visit South Sudan in the coming weeks to finalize this and other outstanding matters, including the issue of oil revenues and a new framework agreement on citizenship and border issues.
Mukesh Kapila, who headed UN operations in Sudan in 2003 and 2004 and now works for the Aegis Trust, a group which campaigns against genocide and war crimes, recently visited South Kordofan.
While with the UN in Sudan “I saw what genocidal violence was doing in Darfur. When I asked the world to heed my warnings, it looked away until it was too late,” he said.
“From what I have seen in the Nuba Mountains, I fear that much the same scenario is unfolding there. Will the world listen this time around?”
http://www.irinnews.org/Report/95128/SUDAN-Food-crisis-looms-as-bombs-drive-farmers-from-their-fields

POVERTY: In Sudan, Seeing Echoes of Darfur

NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF: February 18, 2012

A GREAT humanitarian catastrophe and vicious ethnic cleansing is unfolding here in the remote and impoverished region where Sudan and South Sudan come together.
For some in the Nuba Mountains, living in thatch huts far from electricity or paved roads, the sharpest acquaintance they are making with 21st-century technology is to be bombed by Sudanese aircraft.
Bombings, ground attacks and sexual violence — part of Sudan’s scorched-earth counterinsurgency strategy — have driven hundreds of thousands of people from their homes in South Kordofan, the Sudanese state where the Nuba Mountains are located. In some ways, the brutality here feels like an echo of what Sudan did in Darfur, only now it is Nubans who are targets.
“They said that they want to finish off the black people; they said they want to kill them all,” recalled Elizabeth Kafi, a 22-year-old Nuban who said she was kidnapped in December by Sudanese uniformed soldiers. She and others say that the mostly Arab Sudanese soldiers scorn Nubans partly for their darker skin, partly because some are Christian, but mostly because many Nubans back an armed uprising against decades of Sudanese misrule. In 23 days of captivity, she said she saw the soldiers use guns to execute several Nuban men, including her grandfather and brother-in-law. She described watching soldiers gang rape and then cut the throat of a young Nuban woman, and also stab to death the woman’s 3-year-old son.
Kafi said that she also saw 20 to 25 soldiers hold down two Nuban girls, whom she guessed to be about 14 or 15 years old, and gang rape them. The girls died from the rapes and beatings, she said.
It’s impossible to confirm Kafi’s full story, but others verified that she had been kidnapped. And many other Nubans recount similar attacks, or describe similar racial epithets. As in Darfur, the Sudanese soldiers often call their darker-skinned victims their “slaves.” Ahmed Haroun, a Sudanese official wanted by the International Criminal Court for committing crimes against humanity in Darfur, is now the governor of South Kordofan, and he seems to be employing similar tactics here.
While the Sudanese government is trying to suppress an armed rebellion in the Nuba Mountains, it is civilians who bear the brunt of the suffering. In an apparent effort to starve the rebels, Sudan is blocking aid groups and food assistance from reaching the area, and the United Nations Security Council a few days ago expressed “deep and growing alarm” at rising hunger levels there. Some 28,000 Nubans have sneaked out and settled in a new refugee camp here in Yida, South Sudan, just south of the border with Sudan. Scores more straggle in most days, many half-starved.
“I came because I was starving,” said Muhasin Kuwa, a 24-year-old woman who just arrived at the refugee camp. Both her parents had starved to death, along with seven small children in her small village, she said.
The Sudanese military has tried to block access routes, making escape perilous. I spoke to members from a group of 16 who had crowded into a car, paying $45 each for what they hoped would be a flight to safety in the refugee camp. But then, the day before I interviewed them, they came to a checkpoint manned by Sudanese soldiers.
“They called us over,” said the vehicle’s owner, Haroun Suleiman, 42. “Then they shot at us with guns.”
Two male passengers, ages 41 and 25, were shot dead, he said. Two women, one with a month-old baby, are still missing. The others ran frantically into the bush and escaped, eventually making their way to the refugee camp.
The Sudanese government bombed this refugee camp in November, and, just a week ago, it bombed the nearby town of Jau, in South Sudan. Fears are growing of a new all-out war between Sudan and South Sudan, in part because of an oil dispute. South Sudan separated from the rest of the country just in July, and the two sides can’t agree on the oil pipeline fees that the South should pay. The South then shut off oil production, so both countries are now facing an economic crisis. Some experts warn that the North may try to seize oil wells from the South.
Nuban children are already growing up in war. When kids surrounded me in the refugee camp, I asked them how many had lost a brother or sister in the war. About one-third raised their hands.
When the food runs out in the Nuba Mountains, perhaps in two or three months, there will be a risk of mass starvation. I saw one 4-year-old girl at a feeding center run by Samaritan’s Purse, the aid group, who weighed only 22 pounds. Unless outside countries enforce humanitarian access into the Nuba Mountains, we can expect more famished children like her.
The Sudanese armed forces try to keep aid workers and journalists out, so the story of suffering has not received much international attention. I’m going to try to slip into the Nuba Mountains and report back. Stay tuned.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/opinion/sunday/kristof-in-sudan-seeing-echoes-of-darfur.html?hp

POVERTY: SUDAN-SOUTH SUDAN: Pressgangs "still operating in Khartoum"

JUBA-KHARTOUM, 8 February 2012 (IRIN) -

Rebel groups fighting South Sudan’s government have bolstered their ranks through the forced recruitment of southerners living in Khartoum, according to a senior official in Juba, a self-styled rebel leader, and a man who escaped a pressgang in Sudan’s capital.
Although the alleged forced recruitment appears to have died down since a reported spate of abductions in late December, South Sudan’s information minister and government spokesman Barnaba Marial Benjamin said it was still taking place sporadically.
It happens “from time to time, it is random; they don’t have specific dates when they carry it out. Even if it goes down [in frequency], doesn’t happen for two or three days, you hear again a week later the same process is being repeated over and over again,” he told IRIN.
Benjamin accused “national security authorities in the Republic of Sudan [of] encouraging the militia groups that are in Khartoum to forcefully recruit some of the [southern] students from the University of Khartoum” and send them to training camps “to be part of the militia groups” fighting the Juba government.
Although Sudan has denied any involvement, Benjamin said a government delegation travelled from Juba to Khartoum in January to call “for this type of activity to stop. But it seems that nothing is stopping... and I think that this is actually spoiling the principle of building relations between the two states."
In late December, Simon*, a 49-year-old Southerner living in Khartoum, told IRIN about his own narrow escape from recruitment.
“There were seven of us in the middle of a big market in Khartoum at around 2pm. I saw seven people coming to us. Two of them had pistols under their jackets. ‘Come with us,’ they told us. We were taken in a pick-up truck to an empty house in west Omdurman.
“There were five others prisoners. They chained our feet and left us only an empty jerry-can to use as a toilet. They told us they wanted to bring us to the South to fight against the SPLA," he said, referring to the Sudan People's Liberation Army, the regular army of South Sudan.
Simon says he owes his freedom to his employers, who paid the abductors the equivalent of about US$1,500 for his release.
It is unclear how many such abductions have taken place. One aid worker in Khartoum said in late December, “We have heard from embassies, press reports, local organizations and NGOs that about 200-300 South Sudanese people have been kidnapped in Khartoum in the last couple of months. There is no official figure, only unofficial reports.”
A man reliably introduced to IRIN as a southern rebel commander, William Goikang, said he helped to plan the abductions.
“Now we are taking students. Some follow us without quarrel and for others we have to use force... We only take men between 20 and 30,” he told IRIN in late 2011.
Goikang said the conscripts were taken to one of six training centres in South Sudan’s Unity and Jonglei states, but he denied any ransoms were demanded or that the Khartoum government had any role in the recruitments.
Sudanese Information Ministry spokesman Rabbie Abdellati Ebait told IRIN his government was “against all crimes such as abductions. If cases arise, the police are there to track down and catch the criminals. It has nothing to do with political matters."
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=94811

POVERTY: SUDAN-SOUTH SUDAN: Returnees left in limbo

NAIROBI, 5 December 2011 (IRIN)

 Photo: Hannah McNeish/IRIN
Homeward bound... Southern Sudanese arrive by barge in Juba

Some have camped for months waiting for promised transport to South Sudan, others have been and returned, disappointed with life in the world's newest state.
Five months after the South gained independence, the fate of hundreds of thousands of southerners living north of the border remains uncertain, particularly so as the Northern military battles borderland rebels it - and Washington - accuse Juba of supporting.
Even their numbers lack any consensus: 700,000, according to the UN, 150,000 according to Khartoum.
Most lost their Sudanese citizenship after secession on 9 July and were given nine months - until 9 April 2012 - to "regularize their status", but were not told what this means in practice.
Many have spent their entire lives in the north; dual nationality has been ruled out.
More than 350,000 people of southern origin have headed south on their own over the past year, another 130,000 with help from the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration. By the end of the year, UNHCR expects a further 140,000 to register for assisted return.
Tens of thousands still in the north, who have made the first steps to returning, selling their homes and many of their possessions, have found themselves stuck in temporary camps with limited access to basic amenities.
"The hardest thing is that nothing has changed since the independence of South Sudan," said Victor Rabbi, leader of a camp called Al-Andaluz, in Mayo near Khartoum.
"We sold everything months ago because we thought we would go back to our homeland in July. We have nothing left. Not even a job. Since independence, as South Sudanese we no longer have the right to work in the public sector or for NGOs," he said.
The camp consists of hundreds of shelters made from wood and fabric and is home to 3,600 people.
Water is brought in by mules, and two four-litre jerry cans are sold for five pounds (US$1.80), a considerable expense for the residents.
Children cannot go to school any more, as they are no longer considered Sudanese. In the absence of electricity, power cables serve as skipping ropes for the girls.
"We are waiting for someone to tell us to leave," said Rabbi.
Forty families arrived at Al-Andaluz over a year ago. In the run-up to independence, there were promises of lorries paid for by the South Sudan government.

Roads closed
But the conflict in the border states of South Kordofan and Blue Nile has led to the closure of all land routes between the two countries. In any case, seasonal rains also make it almost impossible to travel by road.
Since April, the journey south can only be made by river barge or train.
While six train services have been funded, departures are not easy to programme.
"The train is protected by soldiers from Sudanese army until [the railway junction at] Babanusa. Then, SPLA [South Sudanese army] soldiers take over. The train goes through areas vulnerable to attacks. The journey to [the southern railhead town of] Wau takes 17 days," said Paul Urayo, who works in the Khartoum office handling the registration of South Sudanese from the Bahr al-Ghazal region.

 Photo: Maryline Dumas/IRIN
And back again...Many southerners return to the north because of insecurity and harsh conditions in the south

"It is impossible to say how long the return trip will take in such difficult conditions," Urayo said.
After independence, the local government in some states in South Sudan chartered 16 trucks to carry returnees' luggage.
Months later much of the luggage is still stuck in Al-Andaluz, held by transport companies, which say they have not yet been paid for their services by local authorities in South Sudan.
"If it goes on like this, we'll have to write off our things," said Rabbi. "Then we really will have nothing when we arrive in South Sudan to rebuild our lives."

Slow boat to Juba
The main departures point for those heading to the southern and central states of South Sudan are the near-adjacent river Nile ports of Kosti and Renk, which more or less straddle the border.
But in the absence of commercial traffic, the 12-day passage to Juba is only possible on barges operated by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), meaning an average wait of more than 100 days. According to the IOM, once barges carrying 3,000 people leave Kosti soon, some 8,000 to 10,000 people will still be left waiting there, with another 22,000 in Renk, on the South Sudan side of the border.

Doubling back
Many returnees, if they have the means to do so, double back to the north, despite the uncertainty. This is particularly the case in South Sudan states experiencing armed conflict. Some 12 percent of those who travelled to Upper Nile, Unity as well as Western and Northern Bahr el-Ghazal have returned north, according to Ismael Ibrahim, an internal displacement expert working in North Sudan's Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs.
Among them was Paul*, who arrived with his wife and three children in Unity's capital, Bentiu, to the sound of landmine explosions and clashes between government forces and rebels.
"It was too dangerous. One day, I was the victim of an ambush on the way to my job as a school teacher. I decided to come back to Khartoum," he told IRIN, adding that he plans to send his children to school in either Uganda or Ethiopia.
The stark contrast between living in a city with some semblance of amenities and trying to get by in a rural area almost entirely lacking in public services and infrastructure is another reason returnees head back north.
"I sent my wife and my children to Juba in March [2011]," Santurino, an English teacher, told IRIN in Khartoum.
"There was no electricity or running water in their hut. My two eldest children [eight and five years old] couldn't go to school because the classes were overcrowded, and it was hard for them to understand Juba Arabic [a mix of Arabic and Kiswahili spoken in Juba], which the other children spoke.
"My children were happy to come back to Khartoum. I agree that everyone has to make sacrifices, but only if it is to build the country. But six years after the peace agreement [ending years of north-south civil war], the government has done nothing and I absolutely don't believe that there will be an improvement by April," he said.
But most southerners living in Khartoum lack the means to make such choices and some do not even believe anyone doubles back once they have headed south.
"That's just propaganda from the Khartoum government!" insisted Garang Akog Madi, who lives in Al-Youssif, a northern district of the capital.
Exactly what status the "foreign" South Sudanese will be accorded if they stay in the north after the April deadline - whether, for example, they will be allowed, like Egyptian nationals, to travel freely in and out of the country - depends on the outcome of post-secession negotiations between the two governments.
But there has been little sign of progress in these stop-start talks, which also focus, with seemingly more priority, on oil, financial arrangements, border demarcation, and the status of the Abyei region.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=94395

POVERTY: South Sudan: Returning refugees

JUBA , 5 December 2011 (IRIN) - SOUTH SUDAN: Iklas Monu Ahmed, “Since I’ve been here, nobody has come to talk to me or show us where to go”


 Photo: Hannah McNeish/IRIN
Iklas Monu Ahmed and one of her children

A steady stream of barges from the North arrives at Juba Port but Iklas Monu Ahmed and her four children are still camped out at the dock three months after their ship came in. More than 350,000 South Sudanese have come back of their own accord over the past year, and the International Organization for Migration will have helped 20,000 returnees since January, when the country voted to secede from Sudan. Up to a million are thought to be in the North as the 9 April deadline approaches to “get legal or get out”. Many returnees need support with food and basic items, plus a plot of land, to build a new life in a new nation lacking opportunities. Ahmed is desperate as three-year-old Mamdu lies prone on a bare bedframe and the family is stuck, facing sickness and hunger.
“I was taken to Khartoum at the age of 11... Now I’m 31. The life was ok in Khartoum. I was working... and I was able to feed the family.
“But since I came here there is no one to receive us and nobody to take us home. Life is difficult, there is no food, and I came with children. Now the younger one is sick and the elder ones went to town looking for something to treat him.
“Of course, Juba is my place where I want to stay but I have nowhere to go and nobody to take care of me. If only I could take a piece of land to put the family and my luggage that is down here, I would be able to get something to do for myself, like making tea, and the family would be sustained.
“Since I’ve been here, nobody has come, either the government or any of the agencies, to talk to me or at least show us where to go.
“We were given cards, [ration] cards, but we have not been served any food or non-food items up to now.
“I left Juba after my mother died when I was 11 and my father was gone. So when I went to Khartoum I stayed with the relatives of my mother there and got married to a Darfuri and we separated.
“I do work in hotels helping to wash dishes and fetch water. They pay me 10 pounds [US$3.70] a day and I buy food every evening for the children.
“But for three days I have not gone as my son is sick. I took the child to the hospital and he has been prescribed drugs but they are not the easiest to buy from the clinics as we don’t have the money.
“He has malaria and he vomits whenever he tastes something.
“We sleep outside here on this floor.
“I’m here because the country now is at peace and it is a separate nation and I have come back home like any other national.
“If only I can get a piece of land, I can sustain the family, just like in Khartoum.
“There are many changes in Juba, but for me to be able to join in this race of changes, I need a piece of land.
“In the north, you live like refugees as no one is settled and you live under threat. Here with a piece of land, you can settle.”
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=94393

POVERTY: SOUTH SUDAN: Sex workers risk violence, HIV in Juba's brothels

JUBA, 28 November 2011 (PlusNews)

 Photo: Siegfried Modola/IRIN
Juba's sex workers say many clients refuse to use condoms (file photo)

In the tin warehouses at the back of Jebel Market, in Juba, capital of South Sudan, the business of sex is booming; in the rows and rows of tiny, dark, padlocked rooms - a so-called "sex camp" - girls and women practise the world's oldest profession in the world's newest country.
Juba is one of the fastest-growing cities in the world; construction and trade are thriving, and commercial sex work is no exception. Many of the women in the sex camps are from neighbouring countries such as Kenya and Uganda, drawn to Juba by the lure of making a quick buck; few, however, realize the dangers.
"They [clients] tell you they want you, then they take you to a room and when you ask them to use a condom they pull out a knife or [hold] you at gunpoint," says Charity*, who came from Uganda looking for waitressing or domestic work. "They are beating you, slapping you, saying: 'why you want to use a condom if you come here?'" the 30-year-old says, her experience echoed by many other women.
"Sometimes after the customer enjoys with you they refuse to pay," and especially if the matter of condoms is brought up, says Mary*, 35.
Mary's work enables her to send around US$35 a month to her six children in Uganda.

HIV risk
HIV is already a reality for many of these women, and for others, a very valid risk. Ugandan sex worker Anna says she has known she is HIV-positive since 2006. "I'm not doing this job because I want to - I don't have any choice," says the single mother of three, whose husband left her nine years ago.
"Sometimes you enter the room with them, they give you 10 pounds [around $3.50] and say they don't want to use a condom," Anna said, adding that "some take you by force" if you insist on a condom.
Sex workers often do what they can to protect themselves from HIV and other sexually transmitted infections and are usually better informed about HIV than their clients, according to Phyllis Jones-Changa, interim head of Family Health International (FHI), an NGO funded by the US Agency for International Development that works with most at-risk populations, including sex workers.
FHI is training sex workers to be peer educators and distribute condoms in brothels.
"We're finding that the knowledge levels are higher [among sex workers]... the sex workers are actually asking us to provide more condoms," she said. "You do find cases where men don't want to use condoms but I think increasingly we're finding that the sex workers, when they become more aware, they use more condoms."
FHI has tested 17,000 people in the "most at-risk" category since the start of the year in four states - Eastern, Western and Central Equatoria and Western Bahr el Ghazal - and found prevalence to be 8 percent. In comparison, a 2009 survey put the general prevalence in South Sudan at about 3.1 percent.
Jones-Changa added that ongoing efforts by the authorities to evict the sex camps from Jebel Market would make it much harder for organizations such as FHI to conduct HIV prevention programmes for sex workers in the city.
They take you to a room and when you ask them to use a condom they pull out a knife or [hold] you at gunpoint

Growing numbers, less money
Estimates of the numbers of sex workers in Juba vary from 3,500 to as many as 10,000, but they all agree that the numbers are rising. "Within the areas where we work in Juba, we have between 4,000 and 6,000 sex workers registered, and we don't even work in all areas," Jones-Changa said.
Cathy Groenendijk, who runs a local NGO called Confident Children out of Conflict (CCC), spoke of an "explosion" in sex work that she says has pushed prices down from about $35 per sex act six years ago. Charity, who arrived in Juba two years ago, says the price has halved to $1.75 due to a recent influx of new women. She said her last HIV test six months ago was negative, but that the price decrease means that some men come and spend all day in the "sex camp" and have sex with several women who may or may not use protection.
Many of the Ugandan women in Jebel Market flocked over the border to South Sudan at the start of the year, when the South voted almost unanimously to secede from the north after decades of civil war.
Groenendijk says that while many of the sex camps were torn down before independence celebrations, they have simply changed locations. Nearby, there are other camps full of Congolese, Ethiopian and Eritrean women who also came to South Sudan seeking employment.

Children in sex work
While the adult sex market is mostly serviced by foreign women, under-age South Sudanese girls often live in even worse conditions and have to see at least three clients a day for food and the $3.50 daily rent to pimps.
Awut*, 15, looks younger than her age as she stands in a tiny bedroom that she has tried to brighten up by hanging a colourful array of clothes, her most prized possessions, on the walls.
She is one of six girls IRIN spoke to who had dropped out of the CCC programme to send street children to school and refuses to admit to Groenendijk that after an abortion last year, she is now quite clearly pregnant again.
"There's a guy that comes around here," she says, smiling nervously and twirling a strand of synthetic hair around chipped fingernails when asked if she has a boyfriend. Her two friends, also known to CCC, struggle to hide their own growing bellies.
"All three girls are pregnant. That means that they are not using condoms," Groenendijk said, expressing concern about diseases and the young girls' ability to raise children.
Her centre lacked the staff and resources to take on the massive youth problems in Juba; for many young girls, sex work is preferable to life on the streets.
"One of the girls told me that she would rather go and have sex paid for than forced sex in the market... for nothing," she added.
 Photo: Hannah McNeish/IRIN
Rooms in a brothel in Juba's Jebel Market

Weak HIV programmes
During the 21-year civil war that claimed some two million lives, South Sudan's borders remained closed and its HIV prevalence was relatively low compared with Kenya and Uganda.
Officials fear, however, that HIV prevalence could be higher and continues to rise. "Anecdotally, we have heard that the rate of HIV, particularly along the border areas, and [among] sex workers is rising; however, there is no conclusive data demonstrating this," said Mandisa Mashologu of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in South Sudan, which helped the country secure $26.9 million from the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis in 2006 for a five-year programme to help prevent and treat HIV/AIDS.
While South Sudan applies to the now seriously underfunded Global Fund for more cash, Mashologu says, "There is currently inadequate government budget for HIV/AIDS.
"Logistics and supply chain management is one of the major challenges facing government, UNDP and its partners,” she added, noting that Juba's main hospitals ran out of test kits in October as a "Know Your Status" campaign launched a year ago gained momentum.
"Just from anecdotal evidence... it could be explosive if we don't get hold of it [HIV] now and really address it, and because of the economic meltdown right now, [finding funding] is a challenge," Jones-Changa said.
Richard Jeniozi, civil society coordinator at the South Sudan AIDS Commission, said the flow of immigrants, traders, refugees and returnees over the border to a post-conflict country lacking resources and with a long list of health problems meant HIV could soon become a major problem.
"This movement of people over the borders is putting the population... that has low levels of education and high levels of poverty [at risk]," Jeniozi said. "Combating HIV/AIDS is not a one-man business, so I call on the government and all the NGOs to support us and for the population to realize this is a real threat, as our capacity is low after the war."
http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=94320

POVERTY: SUDAN: Beyond the euphoria of Southern independence

JUBA, 8 July 2011 (IRIN)

 Photo: Jose Miguel Calatayud/IRIN
Flying the flag for a new start (file photo)

South Sudan becomes the world's newest nation on 9 July, the final step in the six-year Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), a deal that ended the 1983-2005 North-South war.
The government is upbeat, but after the euphoria of celebrations and the pomp of speeches, the new nation faces a mammoth task.
"South Sudan is not starting from scratch," the South’s information ministry said in a release timed for independence. "For the past six years, the Government of South Sudan has enjoyed considerable autonomy, with an elected assembly, government and a functioning judicial system."
South Sudan does have the trappings of a state: flag, national anthem, and a coat of arms but building the new nation will require more than unfurling the colours of the new nation.

Relations with the north
Exactly how North and South Sudan divorce is critical to the future for both states. Key negotiations still remain - most importantly over oil.
Border conflict has already forced thousands to flee, including some 110,000 people following the northern occupation of the contested Abyei region in May.
Bombings continue in the northern oil state of South Kordofan, where fighters once loyal to the South complain they have been left abandoned as the South splits away.
Both sides have traded accusations that the other is backing rebel movements, claims also rejected by both.
The two sides are masters of continuing to talk, despite the violence and accusation.
“Both parties have clearly demonstrated that from now on, no unilateral action, no provocation could bring them back to war, and their remaining disputes shall be resolved through dialogue,” said Haile Menkerios, the UN Secretary-General’s special representative, in a speech on 7 July.
Temporary agreements have been reached on Abyei and on Southern Kordofan as well as the creation of a 20km-wide demilitarized border buffer zone - these must still be implemented.

Border tensions and oil
But the high tensions still raise significant concerns. "The worst-case scenario is a return, a re-ignition, of this long-running North-South civil war that lasted over 20 years," said Gerry Martone, director of humanitarian affairs for the International Rescue Committee (IRC).
The equal sharing of oil revenues under the CPA ends on 9 July, but both sides depend on the income and diplomats warn that the creation of two viable states will require the South to pay some of the profit to the North.
The South holds the bulk of reserves, but, despite a determination not to share its profits any longer, it must still export via pipelines through the North.
It is hoped that the source of greatest contention could also be a pragmatic economic driver of peace.
"They are in fact mutually dependent on each other," Martone said. "Neither one can survive without the other, and that is largely because of oil revenues.”
There has been progress since the end of the war, but at nowhere near the scale needed and people are becoming increasingly frustrated at the slow pace of change
South Sudan has often talked about breaking that connection by building its own pipeline, but that remains far off, experts say.
"The conventional wisdom is that the South would have to have new oil finds in order to make that pipeline economically viable," said Jon Temin, of the United States Institute of Peace. "So the pipeline is possible, but it’s not something we’re going to see any time in the near future.”

Institutions
Shiny new government buildings are being built in South Sudan's capital, Juba.
"Given the regional autonomy with which the South operated… much of the architecture necessary to govern at the national level is in place, even if rudimentary,” the International Crisis Group said in an April report.
But effective officials are still absent, or woefully lacking in even basic skills, at state and county levels.
The South has only "the highest levels of the executive branch set up”, said Ronald Wasilwa from the Africa Peace Forum. "The structures that have been put up in South Sudan are good, but they need to go down to the people."
Forging those institutions into effective providers of the rewards of peace and independence that the people expect will be a giant task.
Many accuse the government of rampant corruption, and of domination by the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) over smaller opposition parties.
The drafting of an interim constitution in recent months sparked walkouts by the committee overseeing the process by opposition groups, who claimed the SPLM dismissed their concerns.
"While the South has made some progress in state-building and reforms, the early signs of governance - forcing through constitutional changes, restricting the media, centralizing power in the office of the President, and resorting to military violence over mediation in conflicts with rebel groups - have not been encouraging,” a recent report by a coalition of 22 international and Sudanese campaign groups, Beyond the Pledge, warned.
"The South should be urged to break from the politically repressive and divisive patterns of governance characteristic of the North," it added.

Such criticisms are echoed by many others.
"There are real concerns about the Southern government and its capacity," Temin said. "There are concerns about its real commitment to democracy; the process of developing a new constitution has been troubled; there are worrying reports of pretty high levels of corruption in the South."

Rebels, the army and conflict
The ex-rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) will change its name at independence to the South Sudan Armed Forces.
The challenge, however, will be to ensure it also begins to change its ways: it has been accused of rape, massacres, extra-judicial killings and abuse.
This has been the most violent year for South Sudan since the peace deal was signed six years ago, with the SPLA battling at least seven rebel militia groups.
More than 2,300 people died in violence across the South, according to figures collated by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), from local, government and UN assessments.


 Photo: Maryline Dumas/IRIN
Thousands of returnees are still expected to leave the North (file photo)

"This violence has of course brought human rights violations with it because the SPLA, in its clashes with armed rebel groups, has often engaged in indiscriminate killing of civilians, arrests and other violations that we’ve documented," said Jehanne Henry of Human Rights Watch (HRW). She added: "We’d like to see it take steps to ensure accountability for abuses by security forces."
The government has admitted mistakes but says the transition from guerrilla force to army has not been an easy one.
"When you have a five-year-old baby, there may be breakages that are not intended," said the Information Minister, Barnaba Marial Benjamin, speaking to diplomats in a recent address. "But you don’t throw the child out, because you know they can grow up into a responsible person."

Legal hurdles
Experts argue that the new state is not lacking a justice system: it is just very far from perfect.
"Thousands of cases are being heard and very often settled every week across South Sudan, often by chiefs and magistrates with limited formal legal education but with an understanding of the source and context for disputes,” said Cherry Leonardi, a Sudan expert from Britain’s University of Durham.
Many, however, are drawn from an "authoritarian, centralizing and security-focused culture of government", and they have been joined by many people coming from a military background and similarly authoritarian army hierarchies, she added.

Humanitarian needs
South Sudan has some of the worst health and development indicators in the world, but while it is already struggling with its existing population, more people continue to flood in.
At least 309,000 people have returned from the North since October 2010, and still more are expected.
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) said it helped feed about half the population last year, or some four million people.
Addressing those needs will be crucial not only to improve lives, but also to ensure wider stability of the new nation.
"If South Sudan is to have a chance of a peaceful future then basic development is urgently needed," said Alun McDonald from Oxfam. "There has been progress since the end of the war, but at nowhere near the scale needed and people are becoming increasingly frustrated at the slow pace of change."
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=93178

MALARIA: George Clooney 'contracts malaria' in Sudan

Barney Henderson 20 Jan 2011

“I guess the mosquito in Juba looked at me and thought I was the bar,” Clooney joked.
The 49-year-old actor has regularly travelled to Sudan to raise awareness of the Darfur conflict and was most recently in the country for a landmark referendum on independence for the South on Jan 9.
"George Clooney has contracted malaria following recent trip to Sudan," Morgan wrote on his Twitter page. "It's his 2nd bout of malaria. Taking medication but feeling rough."
The interview with Clooney and his father Nick is due to be aired on Morgan's new CNN show on Friday, during which he talks about his malaria battle.
The Ocean's Eleven star was also in Sudan in December to help set up a satellite system with the aim of preventing a new civil war in the stricken country.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/8272808/George-Clooney-contracts-malaria-in-Sudan.html

POVERTY: Sudan and the oil resource curse

January 08, 2011

From Al Jazerra, this video shows Sudan's version of the oil resource curse.

http://povertynewsblog.blogspot.com/search/label/oil%20producing%20countries

POVERTY: South Sudan: Countdown to the world's unlikeliest state

Geoffrey York :  Globe and Mail :  Jan. 09, 2011




When I first met the ragtag rebels of Southern Sudan, it was hard to suppress a skeptical chuckle. They had a broken-wheeled howitzer that they pulled laboriously by hand, and they had a bugle that they couldn’t play. Most of them had no uniforms; many were barefoot.
In place of uniforms, the rebels wore an oddly flamboyant collection of scrap clothing. One fighter was wearing a tattered woman’s dress, while another had donned a clown-like purple plaid suit. A third was sporting a beekeeper’s helmet.


The proposed border between North and South Sudan [Video]

South Sudan braced for independence referendum It was 1993, in the famine-ravaged town of Ayod in the remote scrub-lands of the Upper Nile, and the endless rebellion seemed as hopeless as ever. It was difficult to imagine how these ill-equipped insurgents could win a small local skirmish, let alone a protracted war against Khartoum’s powerful army and air force.
Today, 18 years later, those barefoot rebels are on the verge of an astonishing victory. If confirmed, as widely expected, by a referendum on secession that begins Sunday, Southern Sudan will soon begin negotiating its independence – its dream since the 1950s. It will be the birth of an unlikely new nation.
But the cost has been horrific. Southern Sudan has been consumed by devastating wars for most of the past half-century. An estimated 2.5 million people have perished in those wars, with atrocities on all sides that were shocking in their cruelty.
After decades of indifference by most of the world, the irony is that Southern Sudan suddenly became a fashionable cause over the past decade. Its oil exports became lucrative, forcing the north and south to try to settle their conflict in order to protect their revenue flows. Simultaneously, there was a rapid escalation of U.S. diplomatic pressure on both sides, including the threat of sanctions – partly because evangelical Christian lobbyists had persuaded Congress that it needed to protect the south’s Christians from Muslim persecution.
The U.S. diplomatic pressure was a key factor in forging the 2005 peace agreement, which in turn paved the way for this month’s referendum on secession. Politicians from the United States are jetting into Khartoum to ensure that the vote proceeds on schedule. And now the evangelical Christians have been joined by a flutter of Hollywood celebrities. Film star George Clooney flew into Southern Sudan this week to monitor the referendum, with moral support from Hollywood pals such as Brad Pitt and Matt Damon. It was his second trip to Southern Sudan in the past three months.
All of this frenzied activity is in stark contrast to the worldwide apathy that surrounded Sudan’s civil war at its bloodiest moments. It was a conflict that killed civilians on a fantastic scale, yet few people outside Sudan seemed to care.
The government in Khartoum, fighting to impose an Islamic state on the non-Muslim tribes of the south, gave thousands of weapons to Arab militias to help them raid the southern villages. The militias burned huts, poisoned wells, stole cattle, and kidnapped women and children to trade as slaves. In one massacre in 1987, more than 1,000 people were burned alive in the railway carriages where they had taken shelter.
Both sides used famine as a weapon, destroying the food supplies of villages that they deemed disloyal. Khartoum ordered airplanes to bomb the south indiscriminately from the air. The survivors retreated into the bush. “Southern Sudan went back to the Iron Age,” author Richard Dowden wrote.
When I met the rebels in a remote corner of Southern Sudan in 1993, they were filled with bravado, undeterred by their lack of uniforms and equipment. “We can even fight without clothes,” the local commander, Elijah Hon, told me. “The gun and the bullet will cry, even if the soldier is naked.”
He ordered his men to drill, and it looked briefly impressive. They jogged past the stick-and-grass huts of their town, chanting anti-Arab slogans as they carried their Kalashnikovs and rocket launchers, and they presented arms in a well-rehearsed ceremony.
But what I noticed were the vultures circling in the sky, above the half-buried skeletons of the children who had died of hunger and disease. I saw the bomb craters where the Sudanese Air Force had struck the town, and I saw the panic in the eyes of the villagers when they heard the distant sound of an airplane engine. I saw the emaciated infants, the adults with untreated bullet wounds, the refugees surviving on wild fruit and leaves, and the solitary desperate health worker who had no medicine to give the queues of sick people at his door.
Illiteracy and superstition were rife. Mr. Hon said the rebels had followed the guidance of a tribal prophet who promised they would be immune to bullets when they fought the government troops. The prophet, he admitted, had been wrong.
Despite the constant warfare, he claimed that the children of the rebels were happy. “They are born in war and they die in war,” he told me. “Even our young ones play with little Kalashnikovs.”
I’m still not sure why he was boasting of how the war had twisted the children, but it revealed all the tragedy of Southern Sudan. Entire generations were lost to war.
Juba, the capital of the south, was controlled by government forces for most of the war, but it was besieged by the rebels, year after year. It was crowded with refugees who lived in grass huts, dependent on relief supplies flown into the city, while the rebels fired shells from the outskirts. The city barely survived.
Today, after five years of ceasefire, Juba is springing back to life. Its streets are bustling with cars, trucks, traders, merchants, and the jeeps of hundreds of aid organizations and United Nations agencies.
Yet while some business people are making money (especially traders of East Indian descent from Uganda and Kenya, who have flocked to Juba), the people of Southern Sudan are still dogged by the same crippling problems that I saw in the 1990s. If the south gains its formal independence – which could happen as early as July – it will become one of the poorest and hungriest nations in the world.
Malnutrition and illiteracy are almost as widespread today as they were in the 1990s. About 85 per cent of the population is illiterate, the maternal death rate is one of the highest in the world, one-seventh of children die before they reach the age of five, and less than half of the population has access to clean water. Almost half of the population was dependent on food aid last year. A 15-year-old girl in Southern Sudan has a higher chance of dying in childbirth than finishing her primary school education.
The people of the south are willing to endure all of this, however, because of their memories of the civil war. In the referendum campaign this month, the slogan of the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement is a simple one: throw off the shackles of slavery. “It was the SPLM that said No to slavery,” says one southern official.
The reference to slavery is a powerfully evocative one. It alludes to the Arab slave traders who raided the south to capture slaves in the nineteenth century. It evokes memories of the Arab militias that seized southerners as slaves in the 1980s. And it implicitly suggests that Khartoum would still prefer to treat the southerners as slaves to Islamic law.
“We are African, but we are suffering inside an Arab country,” says Major Abraham Ajith, an officer in the Sudan People’s Liberation Army.
“They are Muslims, and they don’t want Christians. They don’t want the black person to rule anything. They don’t want to recognize our rights. They sell our oil and they don’t tell us. We are going to rule ourselves. We will get our freedom and independence, and then we will get our oil.”
In Juba, the unbearably heavy cost of the 50-year conflict still lingers in the memories of everyone here. On the streets of the city, a pro-secession poster proclaims: “The final walk to freedom; 2.5 million lives paid for our freedom.”
Yet the grim reality is that the bloodshed is not over, and the deaths have not ended. Tribal clashes and clan battles killed about 2,500 people in 2009 and nearly 1,000 more in 2010. Cattle-rustling frequently sparks violence. It’s partly a legacy of the civil war: Everyone has weapons, and nomads carry guns to protect their herds from the cattle-raiders.
Then there is the Lord’s Resistance Army, the mysterious militia that has been covertly supported by Khartoum as it launches raids across the border from Congo into Southern Sudan. Just two weeks ago, the LRA attacked a village in Southern Sudan, killing two villagers and kidnapping 50 of them. More than 40,000 Southern Sudanese have fled from their homes in the past year to escape LRA attacks.
To defend themselves from the LRA, the southern villages have created primitive militias of young men called the “Arrow Boys.” They are armed with spears, kitchen knives, bows and arrows, poison darts, and even nests of bees.
It’s almost as if the ragtag rebels of 1993 have simply shifted to a new battlefront in the wars of this newborn nation.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/africa-mideast/south-sudan-countdown-to-the-worlds-unlikeliest-state/article1862268/

POVERTY: Oxfam: Don't forget Sudan after vote

2011-01-07 13:28 Juba - Oxfam called on the world community on Friday not to forget south Sudan after it votes on secession next week, warning that, independent or not, its people will remain among the world's poorest.
The aid agency said it was vital that continued support be provided beyond the historic vote, as expectations had been raised and there was a danger the fruits of the 2005 peace deal that ended two decades of civil war with the north could yet be squandered.
"The chronic poverty, lack of development and the threat of violence that blight people's daily lives will not disappear after the referendum," said Oxfam's south Sudan chief, Melinda Young, as she presented a report detailing the challenges ahead.
"Whatever the outcome of the vote, these long-term issues need to be addressed. Failure to do so risks undoing any progress made in the past few years," she said.
Among the stark statistics set out in Oxfam's report Beyond Sudan's Big Day are that with just 100 certified midwives to serve an official population of at least 8.2 million, just one in 10 deliveries in the south is attended by a skilled birth attendant - the lowest rate in the world.

Education
The result is that a 15-year-old girl in south Sudan has a higher chance of dying in child birth than finishing her primary school education.
One in seven women die during pregnancy, and more mothers die during child birth than anywhere else in the world apart from Sierra Leone.
An estimated 80% of adults - including 92% percent of women - cannot read or write after entire generations missed out on an education during the devastating civil war
But even six years into the peace, few of the 51% of the population who are under 18 receive a proper schooling, and less than two percent of children complete their primary education.
Over half of people do not have access to safe drinking water. They rely on seasonal pools and rivers that are often dirty and spread potentially fatal diseases such as cholera and diarrhoea.

Violence
Despite the end of the 1983-2005 civil war, in which an estimated two million people died, fighting has forced more than 200 000 people to flee homes in the south in the past year and claimed almost 1 000 lives, Oxfam said.
"The root causes of violence will not go away following the referendum," its report warned.
"Fighting often erupts between ethnic groups due to competition over resources such as cattle, pasture and water points, made worse by unclear land rights."
The head of the United Nations Mission to Sudan for the south, David Gressly, said on Thursday that violent attacks were running at their lowest level since the 2005 peace agreement, creating favourable conditions for last month's voter registration and the run-up to polling in the referendum.
"For the last several weeks - several months probably - we have seen the lowest level of insecurity in southern Sudan since the Comprehensive Peace Agreement has been signed," he said.

Protecting civilians
"It has been a very conducive environment for the registration, and we expect the same to continue for the polling period," Gressly added, while acknowledging that cattle rustlers in Lakes state had killed 11 people and wounded 25 last Saturday.
But the Oxfam report took issue with the peacekeeping mission's focus, saying it should devote fewer resources to the referendum and more to the protection of civilians.
"While the international community and the northern and southern Sudanese governments have been working to resolve high-level political issues such as the voting process, the demarcation of the border, the sharing of oil revenues and national debt, some of the concerns of local communities are in danger of being overlooked," it said.
"The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Sudan (UNMIS) has so far failed to prioritise the protection of local people. Despite the challenges it faces, the mission must do more to quickly identify risks and respond effectively to outbreaks of violence."
Challenges
The report also urged the international community not to neglect north Sudan after the vote.
"With all the focus on the possible secession of southern Sudan, it is often forgotten that the referendum could effectively create two new countries," it said.
"Northern Sudan will also be affected by the outcome of the referendum and is facing many long-term challenges."
http://www.news24.com/Africa/News/Oxfam-Dont-forget-Sudan-after-vote-20110107

MALARIA: Can Southern Sudan Vote for Independence from Malaria?

Bill Brieger : 31 Dec 2010
The UNDP is also responsible for the Global Fund Round 7 Malaria Grant in Northern Sudan. It may be doing a better job with its malaria assignment. The most recent grant progress report rated them well with a ‘B1′, but raised the concern that, “The cash absorption rate during this reporting period is only 56% of the budget. This is attributed to delays in procurements.”
The North has a mix of malaria transmission situations, while the South is squarely in the endemic zone (as seen in map to right). When the South votes soon for Independence, what will be their own chances of becoming independent from malaria?
The Round 7 Malaria Grant in the South is managed by PSI. The Grant started 2 years ago and currently also rates a ‘B1′. At the most recent grant progress report dated October 2010, the following were achieved:
86% of ITNs had been distributed
10 BCC media campaigns had been implemented and over 6000 community organization staff had been trained, exceeding targets
Only 17% of targeted children had been treated with ACTs in the community
Health facilities exceeded expectations in terms of maintaining ACT stocks
The progress report concludes that, “Strengthening the capacity of the health system to deliver health services including malaria interventions have fallen behind set targets, due to late SR selection and contracting, and the PR focusing on the LLIN mass distribution campaign. Nevertheless, results seem to be gaining on set targets.”
Southern Sudan is not without malaria partners. For example, PSI has been working Southern Sudan since “January 2005, distributing Serena long-lasting insecticide-treated nets (LLIN) through the commercial sector … (and providing) support to the Ministry of Health (MOH), Government of Southern Sudan, and county health departments to prevent and treat malaria.” The IRC has trained “villagers to recognize and treat young children for malaria, diarrhea and pneumonia has helped to reduce child deaths by 81 percent in one area of Southern Sudan.”
USAID is also working to help tackle the malaria problem in Southern Sudan. The area has been one of three ‘non-focus’ countries - that is not formally under the US President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI). Two of these countries, Nigeria and Democratic Republic of the Congo, have been added to the formal PMI roster. One wonders whether the fate of malaria control in Southern Sudan rests on the election outcomes.
The BBC quotes a Southern Sudanese nurse who compares the upcoming referendum, “.. as a mother giving birth to twins - once the labour pains are over, the two children can grow up as friends .” We know that malaria during ‘pregnancy’ and during ‘infancy and young childhood’ are threats to survival. We hope that all donors will continue to work for the survival of these Sudanese ‘children’ and bring about a true independence from malaria.
http://www.malariafreefuture.org/blog/?p=1142

MALNUTRITION: Thousands of South Sudan children in 'desperate' condition

GENEVA — Thousands of children in south Sudan are living in "desperate" conditions due to serious malnutrition, as well as a lack of access to medical care and education, the UN children's agency said ."By any international standards, the situation of children in South Sudan is really desperate," said Yasmin Ali Haque, who heads Unicef's bureau in the region.
Malnutrition is one of the major problems of the region where 90 percent of the 9 million inhabitants live with less than a dollar a day, said the UNICEF official.
Around 1.2 million people were dependent on food aid in 2009, the UN agency said, noting that more than 40,000 children in the region are treated every year for malnutrition.
After years of conflict with the Arab-dominated north, "generations of children (in south Sudan) have not had access to schooling or proper health care," she added.
South Sudan also has one of the highest levels of maternal mortality in the world, with more than 2,000 women dying in every 100,000 births.
Due to the lack of access to healthcare, one in every seven children "don't live until their fifth birthday," Haque said.
In addition, only one out of five children aged six enters school.
In the past five years, the situation has improved with the end of the conflict with the north, said Haque, although she acknowledged that "still a lot more need to be done."
She said the referendum on independence planned for January 9 could worsen a humanitarian situation which is already complicated by "floods, drought, inter-tribal conflict or attacks" by Ugandan rebels.
"There is a constant humanitarian situation in South Sudan and there is the potential that it gets worse," she added.
South Sudan is widely expected to opt for independence in the referendum, which would split Africa's largest country in two.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5i4lGpXU1_cUQmWNguWaL_KPyQvfA?docId=CNG.937a29e74a6fa43f33a85ed42e22fb84.211

MALNUTRITION: kala-azar; Hundreds dead in parasitic outbreak

 12 November 2010
AN OUTBREAK of a parasitic tropical disease in southern Sudan has killed more than 300 people - and the worst of the health crisis is yet to come.
The World Health Organisation says the outbreak of kala-azar, a type of leishmaniasis, began last year and has intensified in recent months. More than 7,000 cases have been reported this year.
The parasite that causes the disease is transmitted through sand flies. The illness mainly affects children whose immune systems are compromised by malnutrition.
http://news.scotsman.com/health/Hundreds-dead-in-parasitic-outbreak.6622827.jp