Rebels want to control food aid

2002-08-02 13:12

Lokichokio, Kenya - A militia group holding two aid workers hostage in southern Sudan are demanding control over some of the millions of dollars worth of food aid delivered annually to the impoverished region, an informed official said on Friday.

The militia, belonging to a group called the South Sudan Liberation Movement (SSLM), want the UN World Food Programme to funnel aid through their organisation, said the official.

Aid to southern Sudan is currently channelled through a humanitarian arm of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), the mainstream rebel group opposed to the Khartoum government.

The aid workers, a German and a Kenyan working with the Christian relief organisation World Vision, were spending a fifth day in the hands of their captors on Friday. Security officers who spoke to the two men by radio in the morning said they were healthy, a humanitarian official said.

The pair, whose names have not been made public, were abducted before dawn on Monday when militia attacked a jail adjacent to the World Vision compound in Waat, 400km north of Juba in the Upper Nile region.

One of their colleagues, Steffen Horstmeier (30) of Germany, was flown to safety in Kenya on Thursday after being handed over to a rebel group that co-operates with the UN.

A Kenyan father of three, Charles Kibbe, the director of World Vision's community health programme, died of a gunshot wound in the attack.

Authentic letter

World Vision has received what appears to be an authentic letter from SSLM, said an official with the agency's German arm. He said the letter was being interpreted as a positive sign.

The rebels are demanding to negotiate directly with officials from UN headquarters in New York, according to details of the letter published on Friday by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper.

The SSLM said in the letter it was saddened by Kibbe's death and also said it attacked the jail to free 14 prisoners being held by the SPLA.

SSLM are a splinter militia led by Simon Gatwich, who is opposed to the mainstream SPLA.

Gatwich's militia have terrorised the Upper Nile region by attacking civilians, burning houses and looting, according to Human Rights Watch. He has in the past received support from the Sudanese government in an attempt to undermine the SPLA.

"We have no doubt about (the SSLM's) involvement in the case," a senior humanitarian official said on Friday.

What is unclear is the relationship between the soldiers actually holding the pair, the SSLM leadership and the government in Khartoum.

"It is very unclear whether this specific group has a connection to Khartoum," the official told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Greater autonomy

Two million people have died in a 19-year-long conflict in southern Sudan. The rebel SPLA wants greater autonomy and a greater share of resources for the people of the mostly non-Moslem south.

The government and the SPLA signed a tentative agreement in July guaranteeing the religious freedom of the southern Sudanese people and allowing them to vote in a referendum on independence.

Throughout the war, aid agencies working under the UN umbrella Operation Lifeline Sudan have carried out one of the world's biggest humanitarian operations into the south from their base in the northwestern Kenyan town of Lokichokio.

Delivered mainly by air, the food aid that has poured into southern Sudan since OLS was established in the early 1990s has helped millions of people survive successive famines brought on by a combination of drought and conflict.

But with southern Sudan boasting almost no infrastructure, little security, and some of the world's poorest people, food aid has become one of its most prized commodities and consequently a frequent target for looting and theft. - Sapa-DPA

- SAPA