'More people in need'

2006-04-12 14:05

Dubai - From Congo to Sudan, global donors are turning their backs on Africa's worst conflict zones, setting back efforts to stem the killing and usher in lasting peace, the United Nations' humanitarian chief said on Sunday.

United Nations relief co-ordinator Jan Egeland said donors had only come up with a fifth of the funding needed this year for both Democratic Republic of Congo and southern Sudan, where brutal wars have killed and displaced millions.

"Sudan and Congo are the two worst wars of our generation," Egeland told Reuters in an interview. "The accumulated death toll is several times that of Rwanda's genocide for each. We have to stay the marathon and we are not.

"We are not adequately able to finish the job, and that means funding the return of refugees and displaced people and demobilising and giving jobs to the fighters."

Congo prepares for elections

Congo is gearing up for landmark mid-year elections aimed at drawing a line under a 1998-2003 civil war that sucked in armies from six neighbouring countries and killed almost four million people, most of whom died from hunger and disease.

Yet despite the presence of the world's largest and most costly UN peacekeeping force, violence still rages in the east, where aid workers struggle to get food to tens of thousands of people in remote jungle camps for the displaced.

In southern Sudan, more than 20 years of civil conflict claimed two million lives and crippled a region half the size of Western Europe.

Egeland said funding shortages were also hurting relief efforts in Sudan's Darfur region at a time when a deteriorating security situation and obstruction from Khartoum made international help all the more important.

The UN operation in Darfur has received less than a third of the funds it needs.

"It's paradoxical that we have less money this year even though there are more people in need," he said.

'Need predictable funding'

"The world interest in humanitarian crises is unpredictable. It does up and it goes down, but our presence has to be continuous. We need predictable funding support.

"Many are not aware of how remarkably successful we were through last year. We were able to lower death rates to one-third what they were in the horrible year of 2004. Now, however, we may be returning again to 2004 (levels) unless we get more security, more cooperation from the government, less attacks and more money."

Obstruction

Last week, Sudan's government prevented Egeland from making a planned visit to Darfur, where three million people need aid but increased violence in an area the size of France has left 300,000 people out of reach of relief workers.

Egeland said it was because he spoken out on the need for a UN takeover of the cash-strapped African Union mission monitoring a shaky truce in the remote west.

"In Darfur, we feel very alone in the humanitarian community," he said. "The AU forces are few and not very well equipped."

Egeland said more attention should also be paid to conflict in the north of Central African Republic, where aid agencies say armed groups have been storming villages since June, shooting randomly, looting homes and terrorising civilians.

"It's very serious. It's one of those (crises) that's completely neglected by the whole international community. More than a hundred refugees flee into Chad every day."

Egeland was set to address a global humanitarian aid conference in Dubai on Monday.

- Reuters