NAIROBI (AlertNet) - Increased attacks on relief workers, ethnic violence and simmering political tensions ahead of elections next year are hampering efforts to deliver aid to millions of Sudanese, putting more lives at risk, aid agencies said.
This year has been the most violent period since the war ended in Sudan in 2005 and hundreds of thousands of people in the south of the country are trapped in a worsening crisis, medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said.
A surge in ethnic violence in the south, which has killed some 2,000 and displaced a quarter of a million people, is creating a humanitarian disaster, aid workers said.
Eleven international aid agencies have already been forced to leave the country and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has said it is scaling back its aid work in the region after several of its workers were kidnapped recently in Darfur and neighbouring Chad.
Africa's largest nation is still recovering from two wars in the south and west over the last two decades. Despite five years of relative peace, the basic needs of millions of Sudanese are still not being met, said MSF.
Outbreaks of cholera and kala-azar, a chronic and potentially fatal parasitic disease, in remote and often inaccessible states are compounding the situation.
"A better response to this growing emergency is crucial, or clinics will continue to run out of vital medicines," said Stephan Goetghebuer, MSF's director of operations for Sudan.
Gunshot patients are left without medical care for many days after attacks and many others receive no treatment at all, he added.
TRIBAL VIOLENCE
Tribal violence in the southern states of Joglei and the Upper Nile has been described as the worst in years.
Annual death tolls from the tribal clashes - mainly from cattle rustling - have averaged 20 people in recent years. But the number killed this year marks a significant escalation since a 22-year-long north-south war ended with a peace deal in 2005.
Southern politicians have blamed Khartoum for arming the warring tribes, an accusation the ruling part has denied.
The 250,000 people who have been displaced by the violence are squeezed into camps, where health risks run high.
"In the first ten months of 2009, MSF admitted 11,129 patients with severe malnutrition to its clinics, compared to 6,139 admissions for all 2008," MSF said in a report released this week.
Goetghebuer called on donors to refocus Sudan's aid to emergency programs to bring the situation under control.
RISK OF KIDNAPPINGS
Unlike in southern Sudan, where the neutrality of international aid agencies is more acceptable, the western Darfur region is increasingly becoming dangerous ground for relief workers, humanitarian agencies said.
Earlier this year, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir expelled 13 international and local aid agencies from Darfur after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against him for war crimes allegedly committed in Darfur since 2003, when the conflict in the region began.
It started when mostly non-Arab rebels revolted after accusing Khartoum of neglecting Darfur. A counterinsurgency campaign drove more than 2 million people from their homes. The United Nations says as many as 300,000 people died, but Khartoum rejects that figure.
Aid groups that remained in Darfur say the region has become one of the most dangerous places for aid workers.
"Kidnappings in Darfur have made it virtually impossible for aid agencies to operate outside towns," said Goetghebuer. Five MSF staffs working in Darfur were kidnapped this year.
The ICRC said it had been forced to scale down relief work - it is still negotiating for the release of one of its staff in Darfur.
"The fact that we have been forced to curtail our field presence means that we now provide fewer of these services," Daniel Duvillard, ICRC's head of operations for East Africa, said on the agency's website.
Difficulties in moving around the area have curtailed aid agencies' ability to asses the populationÂ?s need and have also created an information blackout. Some 165 mainly national organisations remain in Darfur but their capacity to provide aid is inadequate.
"Relief organisations clearly do not have access to large areas of territory and those that do have access to vulnerable populations no longer publicise their assessments for fear of expulsion," the Enough Project, a U.S.-based pressure group, said in a statement.
Fouad Hikmat, a Sudan analyst with the International Crisis Group told AlertNet that the Darfur crisis remains potentially explosive.
"What we have in Darfur is a low intensity conflict and mechanisms to bring parties under control have totally failed for now, which means war can resume at any time," Hikmat told AlertNet in Nairobi.
The only major international presence in Darfur, a United Nations-African Union force known as UNAMID, has run into a myriad of difficulties. Last week, it suffered one of its worst attacks when five Rwandan peacekeepers were killed in a single ambush.
"Though the situation has improved so much compared to the last two years, attacks on peacekeepers show that security challenges still remain in Darfur," Kemal Saiki, UNAMID's spokesman, said in a telephone interview from Khartoum.
POLL TEST
Darfur's fate, ICG's Hikmat said, hinges on circumstances surrounding Sudan's general elections, expected to be held in four months.
The polls, the country's first in 24 years, are central to the 2005 comprehensive peace agreement (CPA), which ended the north-south war. The war claimed 2 million lives and forced over five million southern Sudanese into exile.
The presidential and parliamentary elections are widely expected to pave the way for a referendum in 2011 in which the south will choose to secede from the north.
But tension is mounting fast with accusations and counter accusations of breaching the CPA and ethnic violence.
"The north and the south have totally disagreed on key aspects to do with the election and the referendum ... that in itself is threatening peace," said Jon Elliot, Human Rights Watch's Africa advocacy director.
Deadlocked on key provisions of the election law and census figures, the April elections are a major sticking point for the north and the south.
ICG's Hikmat said the vote will be strongly contested if many people in Darfur and south Sudan do not vote. They would feel disenfranchised, which could spark fresh conflict.
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