UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA - AFRICAN STUDIES CENTER
SUDAN: IRIN News Briefs [19990622]

SUDAN: IRIN News Briefs [19990622]

SUDAN: IRIN News Briefs, 22 June

Gaddafi and Bashir agree on closer cooperation

Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi and his Sudanese counterpart President Omar al-Bashir agreed on Sunday to pursue further intra-African cooperation and the revitalisation of the OAU. In a statement issued at the end of Gaddafi's two-day visit to Sudan, the two leaders suggested that the revitalisation of the OAU could be achieved by amending its charter to prepare it to face the challenges of the next millennium.

Acholi leaders on peace mission to LRA's Kony

Leaders from rebel-racked Gulu and Kitgum regions in northern Uganda are on a private mission to southern Sudan in a bid to talk to the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) leader, Joseph Kony. The team consists of representatives of the two local councils and the chairman of the Acholi Parliamentary Group, Absalom Ongom, the semi-official 'New Vision" newspaper said. The paper quoted independent sources as saying the team was in Sudan to try to establish contacts with Kony through the Khartoum government and its ally, the United Democratic Salvation Front.

Army denies capture of Dinder park

Sudanese army spokesman Mohamed Osman Yassin on Monday denied allegations that opposition forces had taken over Dinder national park in Blue Nile. News organisations quoted him as saying the claim was "a tactic to raise the morale of their fighters" who had "suffered great losses" in the war in the eastern front. The forces of the Sudan National Alliance/Sudan Alliance Forces (SNA/SAF) announced last Thursday that they had taken "complete control" of the park. In a statement received by IRIN, they said they had killed 17 government soldiers and wounded 22. "Only four of our fighters were wounded," the statement said.

IGAD peace talks slated for 19-24 July

Meanwhile, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) confirmed to IRIN on Tuesday that it had received official word from Kenya's foreign ministry indicating that the next round of peace talks mediated by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) was scheduled for 19-24 July in Nairobi. On Thursday, President Bashir's advisor for peace affairs, Nafi Ali Nafi, told the Sudanese News Agency (SUNA) that the postponement of the peace talks with the rebel movement was intended to allow for a broader opportunity for the attainment of peace.

Food distributed to nearly 1.5 million in May

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) provided food to nearly 1.5 million beneficiaries throughout Sudan in May to prepare for the beginning of the "most difficult" stretch of the "traditional hunger gap" period, WFP's latest weekly emergency report said. The report said June marked the beginning of the period when the food supply was low and WFP-assisted beneficiaries were "most vulnerable." Overall nutritional conditions "continued to improve" in many areas, except for the Aweil area of Bahr el Ghazal where a recent nutritional survey indicated that the situation remained of "concern," the report said.

The area also continued to receive new internally displaced persons (IDPs) on a daily basis. "In May, some 20,000 IDPs arrived in Aweil East County, further straining the local food situation," the report said. Several NGOs continued to support supplementary and therapeutic feeding programmes in the area to avert a further deterioration of the situation, it added.

[ENDS]

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Item: irin-english-1075

[This item is delivered in the "irin-english" service of the UN's IRIN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations. For further information or free subscriptions, or to change your keywords, contact e-mail: irin@ocha.unon.org or fax: +254 2 622129 or Web: http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN . If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer.]

Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 1999

Editor: Dr. Ali B. Ali-Dinar, Ph.D

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