News Article by REUTERS posted on August 15, 2000 at 15:06:07: EST (-5 GMT)
UN lifts week-long suspension of Sudan aid flights
NAIROBI, Aug 15 (Reuters) - The United Nations will resume
aid flights
to Sudan on Wednesday, lifting a week's suspension
that followed a spate of
government bomb attacks on relief
aircraft and compounds.
Masood Hyder, director of the U.N.'s World Food Programme in
Sudan, said
on Tuesday the government had given firm assurances
that it would now be safe
to fly.
"We understand that the government has notified all the
relevant parties
on the ground to enable us to resume flights on
August 16," Hyder told
Reuters from his office in Khartoum.
The U.N.-led relief effort, Operation Lifeline Sudan,
suspended flights on
August 8 after a "shower of 18 bombs" fell
near a U.N.-aircraft in the
southern town of Mapel.
The attack followed a dramatic escalation of bomb attacks on
rebel-held
towns in southern Sudan by government warplanes.
Hyder said Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir had
given personal
assurances that flights could be resumed safely
in a letter to U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
Rebels have been fighting Sudan's Islamic government for 17
years, seeking
greater autonomy for the mainly Christian and
animist south of Africa's
largest country.
An estimated two million people have been killed in the
conflict and
related famines. Millions are dependent on relief
supplies from aid agencies
which fly daily to dozens of
locations to drop or distribute food.