The Sudanese government on Wednesday denied claims by southern rebels that government forces had killed more than 1,000 people in a major offensive in south Sudan's main oil region.
"This is a figment of someone's imagination. The government has launched no offensive in that area," Muhammad Ahmad Dirdiery, charge d'affaires at the Sudanese embassy in Nairobi told IRIN on Wednesday.
According to news agency reports, the alleged attacks began on Friday 26 July when government forces attacked rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) positions near the village of Tam, some 20km south of Bentiu, the main government town in western Upper Nile (Wahdah State).
Over the weekend, government Antonov bombers and helicopter gunships had been used to continue the offensive, the BBC quoted SPLA spokesman Samson Kwaje as saying. 
However, according to Dirdiery government- and rebel- allied militias had been involved in "low-level skirmishes" in an attempt to gain territory ahead of a possible ceasefire agreement. 
"The situation continues to be fragile without a comprehensive ceasefire," Dirdiery told IRIN.
Humanitarian sources told IRIN there was "every indication" to suggest that large numbers of people were killed in fighting over the weekend, but that the SPLM/A's estimates appeared to be inflated. "It is very unusual for 1,000 people to be reported dead as a consequence of fighting over a single weekend," sources said. 
Although the attacks appeared to be targeted against military personnel, rather than against civilians, there were "well-grounded fears" that large numbers of people had been displaced as a result of the fighting, they added. 
The reports come at a time when hopes have been raised for a lasting solution to Sudan's 19-year  civil war. Sudanese President Umar Hasan al-Bashir and SPLM/A chief John Garang held their first ever face-to-face meeting on Saturday 27 July, during which they endorsed a framework peace deal. 
Although the deal - named the Machakos Protocol - includes broad agreement on a number of key issues, such as self-determination for the south and the relations between church and state, arrangements have not yet been made for a comprehensive ceasefire.
Remaining issues, including the need for a comprehensive ceasefire as well as the sharing of the country's oil wealth, will be discussed during the next round of talks, scheduled to begin in mid-August, and held under the auspices of the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD).

Three international aid workers working with the Christian relief organisation, World Vision, were kidnapped on Monday and one was killed during an attack in Waat, Upper Nile, southern Sudan.
"After fighting in the town, one Kenyan national was killed and another Kenyan and two Germans were kidnapped," Alison Preston, communications officer with World Vision told IRIN on Tuesday. "We don't know who did this, or why," she added.
"We are working with the United Nations to secure their release," she said.
The German news agency DPA quoted an official from Operation Lifeline Sudan - a consortium of UN agencies and international relief organisations working in Sudan - as saying the attack was against a prison which was about 100 metres behind the World Vision compound in Waat. "In the course of the firefight, it was a stray bullet that killed the Kenyan," he said.
UN and World Vision officials contacted by IRIN declined to comment on whether the current whereabouts of the three are known.

Sudanese President Umar Hasan al-Bashir and southern rebel leader, John Garang, on Saturday held their first ever face-to-face meeting in the Ugandan capital Kampala, and endorsed the recent signing of a framework peace deal. 
A communique issued by the Ugandan government said Bashir and Garang "applauded the breakthrough" and "undertook to ensure that all efforts are deployed to resolve outstanding issues". 
Siraj al-Din Hamid, the Sudanese charge d'affaires in Kampala, told IRIN on Monday that the two leaders would have discussed peace and "made expressions of seriousness about the Machakos agreement." 
The meeting had served to "break the ice" between the two men after 19 years of war, and had prepared the ground for the next round of talks, he added. 
The two leaders have attended peace talks in the past, but have conducted negotiations through mediators, never meeting face-to-face.
The framework peace agreement, formulated under the auspices of the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), was reached on 20 July in the Kenyan town of Machakos, and included broad agreement on two of the most difficult problems facing negotiators: the right to self-determination for the south, and the relationship between church and state.
Further talks are scheduled in Kenya for the middle of August, during which negotiators will focus on a comprehensive ceasefire, reform of the central administration to include southerners, and the sharing of Sudan's oil wealth. 
While welcoming the Machakos agreement and the leaders' meeting, aid agencies say a workable, comprehensive peace agreement is still some way off. In the coming talks, "the warring parties will be tasked with establishing a peace agreement that makes unity an attractive option for all Sudanese. This will not be an easy task," a spokesperson for CARE International told IRIN on Monday. 
The meeting took place after a recent thaw in relations between Khartoum and Kampala, with the two countries in April agreeing to re-establish full diplomatic ties, severed in 1995 after Khartoum accusing Uganda of supporting the rebel SPLM/A. 
The Sudanese government in March gave the Ugandan army permission to pursue the rebel Lord's Resistance Army in Sudanese territory, and said it had stopped supporting the Ugandan rebel movement. 
In separate talks with Museveni, Bashir reiterated his government's "commitment to continue cooperation with Uganda regarding the current military measures" being undertaken by the Ugandan army against the LRA in southern Sudan.
"The relations with Uganda are quite perfect," Al-Din Hamid said.

A Sudanese "Special Court" has sentenced 87 people to death in Nyala, Southern Darfur province, for their involvement in clashes with another tribe, according to the Sudanese News Agency (SUNA). 
A further eight defendants were acquitted and one sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment, the report said on Wednesday. 
Those sentenced are members of the Rizeigat tribe, who were arrested following an attack on a village in southern Darfur which belongs to a rival tribe, known as the Ma'aliya. 
The clashes - a "revenge attack" after a Rizeigat tribal member was killed - left 54 people dead, Muhammad Ahmad Dirdiery, the charge d'affaires at the Sudanese embassy in Nairobi, told IRIN on Thursday.
The advocacy group, Organisation mondiale contre la torture (OMCT), reported on Tuesday that two of those sentenced to death were only 14 years-old. It also claimed 35 detainees were tortured.
Commenting on the allegations, Dirdiery said that according to Sudanese law, people sentenced to death could not be under 18 years of age. "If there is such a case, there would definitely be room to appeal," he said.
He added that the allegations of torture could not be correct as the crimes had been committed in daylight and therefore witnessed.
The lawyer acting on behalf of the defendants, Mohamed Fadl Hamid, submitted an appeal to the district chief of justice on 20 July, OMCT reported, but fears remain that the sentences may be carried out very quickly if the appeal fails. 
Although both the Rizeigat and the Ma'aliya tribes are of Arabic origin, OMCT reported that elements of the Ma'aliya had joined with Sudanese government forces during recent attacks against the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) in the south of the country. The Rizeigat have reportedly accused the government of supporting the Ma'aliya as a result.
Sudanese Special Courts were established in accordance with the State of Emergency Act 1998, by the governors of Southern and Northern Darfur Provinces, to deal with crimes of armed robbery, crimes against the state, as well as crimes relating to drugs and "public nuisance".

The United States and the United Nations have both hailed a framework peace deal signed between the Sudanese government and southern rebels in the Kenya town of Machakos on Saturday.
"The signing of the Machakos Protocol by the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement is a significant step in moving towards a just and lasting peace," US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told a news briefing.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who met Sudanese President Umar Hasan al-Bashir in Khartoum earlier this month, welcomed the progress made in the peace negotiations. 
In a statement released by spokesman Fred Eckhard, the Secretary-General expressed the hope "that the parties to the peace talks will be able to build on the momentum so that they can reach a definitive agreement in their next round". 
The talks have been taking place in Machakos, Kenya, under the auspices of the Sudan Peace Committee of the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD). Negotiations are expected to resume in Kenya in August to reach agreement on remaining issues, including how best to distribute income from oil reserves, and arrangements for a comprehensive ceasefire.
"The interim measure is a strong indication that the parties are both willing and capable of reaching a negotiated settlement to Sudan's civil war," Boucher said. 
The framework deal includes broad agreement on two of the most contentious issues that have faced negotiators working in Sudan: the right to self-determination for the south, and the relationship between state and religion.
A referendum on self-determination for the south is planned after a six-year interim period, and the southern states have secured exemption from the imposition of Sharia'ah (Islamic) law. 
During the interim period, an independent assessment and evaluation commission will be established to monitor implementation of the agreement, which will include representatives of the Sudanese government, the SPLM/A, and observer states such as the US, Boucher said
The agreement also provides for a pre-interim period of six months, during which the parties would cease hostilities, establish institutions and mechanisms agreed in the Protocol, implement mechanisms to monitor the peace agreement, and establish a constitutional framework in accordance with the peace agreement, he said. 
The accord was also broadly welcomed by analysts and aid agencies. "This is a great first step, but it is only a beginning in terms of the work that needs to be done," a regional analyst told IRIN. It was important, however, that the international community, and the US in particular, maintain pressure on the parties, and also bring on board other interested governments.
The IGAD peace process, which started in 1993, has previously been criticised by many analysts and aid agencies for its failure to achieve tangible results. However, the process had become much more effective in recent months as a result of the closer involvement of observer countries, including the US, the UK and Norway, regional experts told IRIN.
During his recent visit to Khartoum, Annan and Bashir discussed the IGAD peace process, and the importance of a peace deal for the improvement of humanitarian access to conflict-affected populations in the south. 
Annan said on Monday he was confident that "once a definitive peace agreement is reached, the international community will be ready to provide the necessary assistance for its full implementation."

The Sudanese government and the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) on Saturday said they had agreed on a framework deal for ending the country's 19-year civil war
Muhammad Ahmad Dirdiery, charge d'affaires at the Sudanese embassy in Nairobi, told IRIN on Monday that the parties had "agreed on a framework that addresses all the major issues".
In particular, agreement had been reached on two of the most contentious issues - the relation between church and the state, and self-determination for the south.
SPLM/A spokesman Samson Kwaje told IRIN on Monday both sides had agreed that southerners would be given the opportunity to vote in a referendum on self-determination after an interim period of six years. People of the south would be given two clear options - to maintain the unity of Sudan under the interim arrangements, or to vote for secession of the south, he said.
During the interim period, Sudan would be governed with a "federal set-up", under which south  Sudan would be given special status, making it exempt from the imposition of Shari'ah (Islamic) law. A central, national constitution would also be established to guarantee freedom of belief, he said.
Implementation of the agreement would mean a large degree of devolution of power to the south, and the establishment of a bicameral legislature, which would include opposition parties from the north as well as the south, Kwaje said. 
"We are talking of a new Sudan," Kwaje said. "There will be an overhaul of the central administration."
The agreement comes after five weeks of talks in the Kenyan town of Machakos, under the auspices of the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD). 
According to Kwaje, talks would resume on 12 August to work out details of the agreement. These would include discussions on wealth sharing, the precise forms of governance during the interim period, security, and a comprehensive ceasefire.
The peace deal would only come into effect after a comprehensive ceasefire had been agreed, Kwaje said. The SPLM/A has repeatedly rejected government offers of a comprehensive ceasefire, claiming Khartoum would take advantage of a cessation of hostilities to "further its war aims".
The contentious issue of the distribution of oil revenues would be included in discussion on wealth sharing, as well as how best to utilise the country's forests and to divide income from customs duties, Kwaje said. 
The agreement has been favourably received by many in the humanitarian community. 
"We are very encouraged by the news and hope that when negotiations resume in August that the parties will build on the accord," Will Day, Executive Director of CARE UK, said in a statement on Monday. 
"Ultimately, humanitarian agencies look forward to a sustained and just peace, which brings an end to the human suffering which Sudanese have endured for nearly 20 years," he said. 

Government warplanes dropped 12 bombs on the town of Ikotos, Eastern Equatoria, on Friday, seriously wounding two people, according to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Torit.
"Our place has been targeted on three consecutive bombings and we don't understand why," Jervasio Okot, of the Nairobi Social Communications Office of the Diocese of Torit, south Sudan, told IRIN on Tuesday. "These are social places, they are out of the military area."
The bombers had also attacked Ikotos on 26 June, demolishing the house of a local priest, and again on 29 June, when another building in the church premises was destroyed, the Nairobi office of the Torit Diocese stated on 12 July. 
"Consequently, the civil population in Ikotos is in a constant state of fear", it said.
The Sudanese Embassy in Nairobi had no immediate comment.
Okot said the Antonov bombers were also seen over the area on five occasions on Monday, but did not drop any bombs. "The people had to go into hiding and could not even prepare food during the day," he said.
The government could, he said, be targeting Ikotos and the surrounding area as a result of the capture by the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) in June of the garrison town of Kapoeta, some 120 km east of the town of Torit. Government aircraft could be hoping to target rebels in the villages around Kapoeta, he added. The Sudanese army denied, last week, bombing civilians in Kapoeta after losing control of the town. 
"According to information obtained by the armed forces, there are no civilians inside Kapoeta top be a target for bombing," AFP quoted military spokesman Gen Muhammad Bashir Sulayman as saying on 6 July. 
Southern Sudanese Catholic church officials claimed that government aircraft had bombed Kapoeta on 1 July, killing five people and injuring seven, AFP said. The attacks come at a time when preparations are being made for the creation of a US-led international team to monitor attacks on civilian targets.
The head of the monitoring mission, a former US army general, Herbert Lloyd, visited Khartoum last week to begin setting up his office, news agencies reported. The team would comprise 23 to 25 people, and would be based in Khartoum and the southern town of Rumbek, diplomatic sources told IRIN on Monday. "But as of now we don't know who the members of that international coalition will be," sources said.
Okot called on the international community to provide protection for the people of south Sudanese people against further attacks.
"The bishops, the clergy, and the laity strongly appeal the IGAD [Inter-Governmental Authority on Development], and the International Community for intervention, and to declare a no fly zone for the protection of the downtrodden Sudanese", he said. 
 
 

Annan secures partial lifting of aid restrictions

The Sudanese government has agreed to relax restrictions on humanitarian access to all but 18 sensitive locations in conflict-affected south Sudan, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said last week.
"We have agreed that there is a need for comprehensive access, except in 18 locations, where for security reasons, the government believes it is not safe for them to operate," Annan said at the end of a two-day visit to Khartoum on 11 July. 
However, he added that these locations would be kept "under review". "As the situation changes, those will be looked at and hopefully opened up," he said. Annan did not give details of the areas. 
He said Sudanese President Umar Hasan al-Bashir had agreed on the need for "comprehensive" humanitarian access for aid deliveries. "The president and I agreed that food needs to get to the needy, and that humanitarian workers must have free and unfettered access," Annan said.
Humanitarian sources told IRIN on Monday that, following Annan's visit, access restrictions had been lifted on 23 locations. Although agencies had been allowed to access these locations by road or barge (but not by air), the Sudanese government had previously told aid workers it could not guarantee their safety, the sources said. 
However, all "at risk" populations in Sudan should be given unimpeded and sustained access to humanitarian assistance according to the provisions of International Humanitarian Law, the Geneva Conventions and the OLS Beneficiary Protocol, an aid worker told IRIN on Monday. 
"We find it unacceptable that violations of these fundamental rights and humanitarian principles are occurring," she added.
Annan said his talks with Bashir had also paid close attention to the current state of peace talks underway in Kenya to bring an end to the country's 19-year civil war. Five weeks of peace talks, held under the auspices of the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), are scheduled to end on 20 July. 
"I think we do have a very good climate at the moment," Annan said. "There are very, very encouraging signs."

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Thursday concluded a two-day visit to Khartoum, during which he discussed humanitarian access and the ongoing peace process with the Sudanese government and major aid agencies.
"I come at a time when the peace process has been re-energised, and we see some good signs," Annan said.
Aid agencies have expressed hopes that Annan's visit would improve their access to conflict-affected populations in south Sudan. Repeated denials of humanitarian access by the Sudanese government and an escalation of the conflict in several areas of south Sudan have renewed concerns about the humanitarian situation of up to 1.7 million people. 
Asked whether he was concerned about government flight bans in the south, Annan said on Wednesday the UN was always "extremely disturbed if we do not have free and unfettered access to those in need". He also expressed confidence that the Sudanese government would "share my concern that we do not want to see anyone in need deprived" of assistance. 
During his visit, Annan met Sudanese government officials - including President Umar Hasan al-Bashir and Foreign Minister Mustafa Uthman Isma'il, - UN staff, and representatives of non-governmental organisations, including CARE, Oxfam, and Save the Children UK.
A spokeswoman for CARE International told IRIN on Friday that the inability to secure unimpeded access meant aid agencies had been unable to assess accurately the extent of human suffering, and were unable to provide ongoing assistance to those in most need.
"The UN's leadership role in securing access is crucial and needs to be given immediate and high level attention," she said. 
The rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) on Friday said the government of Sudan had declared a "scorched earth policy" in large areas of oil-rich western Upper Nile, and was using humanitarian access denials as "one of its weapons" in the country's 19-year civil war. 
Elijah Malok Aleng, executive director of the Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Association (SRRA) - the SPLM/A's humanitarian wing - called on Annan to visit SPLM/A-controlled areas to "see the human devastation that has been done by the GOS [Government of Sudan] since the start of this war".
Five weeks of peace talks being held in Kenya under the auspices of the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) are scheduled to end on 20 July. 
While the talks were initially hailed as a key opportunity to advance the peace process, the recent escalation of fighting has led some observers - including Kenyan legislators and civil society groups - to call for their suspension.
"Like all concerned, I am hopeful that the parties will come to an agreement before they conclude their meeting on 20 July, and then build on it," Annan said.

The rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) has agreed to the extension of a ceasefire in the Nuba Mountains region of south-central Sudan, sources close to the rebel group told IRIN.
"They [SPLM/A] have agreed to the extension for a further six months following the SPLM/A-Nuba congress," the sources said. 
In June, the Sudanese government agreed to an extension of the initial six month ceasefire period, Usamah Mahjub Hasan, Second Secretary at the Sudanese embassy in Nairobi, told IRIN on Tuesday. The government also agreed that the ceasefire provisions would remain unchanged for the additional period.
The government and SPLM/A-Nuba signed the renewable six-month ceasefire in the 80,000 sq km Nuba Mountains region, Southern Kordofan State, on 19 January this year. The agreement followed six days of closed-door negotiations facilitated by the US and Swiss governments in Burgenstock, central Switzerland.
The ceasefire agreement states, among other things, that both parties should "facilitate humanitarian assistance" by opening up humanitarian corridors and creating conditions "conducive to the provision of urgent humanitarian assistance".
However, humanitarian agencies have warned that bureaucratic issues and delays in implementing some aspects of the agreement had contributed to an erosion of confidence in the ceasefire agreement, particularly in SPLM/A-controlled areas. 
The government agreed in January to "unfettered humanitarian access to Nuba" but had continued to delay and deny flights into SPLM/A-controlled areas until mid-May - just weeks before the rainy season would make airstrips inaccessible there, Roger Winter of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) told a US Congressional hearing in June. 
However, humanitarian flight clearance had subsequently been placed under the aegis of the body charged with overseeing the ceasefire - the Joint Monitoring Commission - and not the Sudanese government, leading to "an overall feeling of optimism" in the Nubas, Winter added.
Philip Nuer of the Nuba Relief and Rehabilitation Development Organisation told IRIN that although some tools and seeds had been delivered to the Nuba people ahead of the rainy season, delays meant many people had not had time to clear land in preparation for planting.
"It [the ceasefire] has been extended, but it doesn't mean people are happy," he said. "Not enough has been done up until now." 

Kenyan legislators and civil society groups have criticised the regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) for its "failure" to successfully broker Sudanese peace talks currently underway in Kenya.
Mwandawiro Mghanga, the coordinator of the Kenya-Sudan Friendship Society told IRIN on Thursday he doubted IGAD's ability to "bring peace" to Sudan if it was "unable to bring pressure to bear on the Khartoum government to halt the killing of civilians". 
"The Kenyan government [which currently chairs IGAD] and IGAD, are both not serious," he said. "They should be able to tell the Sudanese government that bombing civilians in the south is unacceptable."
He added that it was "morally wrong" to talk peace "when a government is murdering its own people". "It has destroyed any level of trust that can be used as a basis of holding talks," he stated. 
Analysts had hailed the talks, which began on 17 June, as a decisive opportunity for negotiators to push forward the peace process between the Muslim-dominated north of the country and the mostly-Christian south. Sticking points, such as self determination for the south and the separation of religion and state, have hitherto held up the process. 
However on Thursday, the Kenyan media reported that Kenyan MPs had urged IGAD chairman, President Daniel arap Moi, to stop the ongoing Sudanese peace talks taking place in the eastern Kenyan town of Machakos "until the Khartoum government puts a stop to the fighting in the south".
"The Sudanese government is bombing innocent civilians in the southern area of the country. The victims of the bombs are children and women. We should stop the talks until Sudan commits itself fully," the 'Daily Nation' quoted MP Gitobu Imanyara as saying.
The MPs' comments follow recent reports of the government bombing of Kapoeta, a key garrison town in southern Sudan, in which seven people were reportedly killed. 
The escalation of conflict in the south also has raised renewed fears over the humanitarian situation of up to 1.7 million people. The region most at risk is Western Upper Nile, where intense fighting since January has caused frequent and massive displacement of civilians, according to Andrew Nations, USAID's humanitarian coordinator for Sudan.
"The government's denial of flight access to the UN's Operation Lifeline Sudan (UN/OLS) for numerous areas in opposition-held southern Sudan is precipitating an alarming humanitarian situation about which the United States is deeply concerned," Nations said in a statement received by IRIN. 
He said that despite numerous agreements by the Sudanese government to provide free and unimpeded access to war-affected populations, Khartoum had continued to severely restrict access to Western Upper Nile in recent months, where more than 300,000 people are estimated to be in need of immediate assistance.

A major humanitarian crisis is feared in areas of southern Sudan, where heavy fighting has been underway for the past few weeks, despite ongoing peace talks in Kenya. 
Southern Sudan has been the scene of fierce fighting between the government in Khartoum and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) since 1983. However, fighting in recent months, had reached its "deadliest phase", the Brussels-based think tank, International Crisis Group (ICG), warned on 28 June. 
Media reports said a government aircraft bombed the town of Kapoeta, a key southern garrison, which the SPLA captured from government forces on 9 June, killing seven civilians. The reports come barely a week after the Catholic church reported that a government military aircraft bombed a church compound in Ikotos town, in eastern Equatoria, southern Sudan. 
On Sunday, the Sudanese media in Khartoum reported that the army had re-captured Gogrial town, in Bahr El Ghazal province, from the SPLA. However, Samson Kwaje, the SPLM/A spokesperson in Nairobi, said the rebels withdrew from Gogrial for "tactical reasons".
In a hard-hitting report, the ICG said oil revenues had enabled the Sudanese government to purchase more weapons and adopt "more brutal tactics" in driving civilians out of oil-rich areas. Meanwhile, the SPLM/A had acquired additional quantities of sophisticated weapons, enabling it to engage government troops in "more intensive conventional" battles, it said. 

Humanitarian access could be impeded 
This escalation could further impede humanitarian access to the region, in addition to frequent relief flight denials by the warring parties to vast areas of the disputed regions in the south, humanitarian sources warned. 
The parties to the peace talks - under the auspices of the regional body, Intergovernmental Authority on Drought (IGAD) - have declined to comment on the situation. Muhammad Ahmad Dirdery, the charge d'affaires at the Sudan Embassy in Nairobi, told IRIN on Wednesday he was not in a position to comment either on the escalation of conflict in the south, nor the progress of the ongoing peace talks. "I am unable to comment on this matter at this time," Dirdery stressed.
Walter Kensteiner, the US assistant secretary of state for Africa, who has been travelling in the region, has however expressed confidence that the talks may yield results on some of the tough issues such as self determination for the south, as well as the separation of religion and state, which are at the heart of the 19-year old conflict.
The Sudanese government has already agreed to extend for a month an agreement that allowed humanitarian access to victims of the war in southern Sudan, following a meeting this week between Kensteiner and Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir. But the recent escalation of the conflict continues to raise humanitarian concerns for thousands of affected civilians. 
Kensteiner's visit this week is broadly seen as an effort to raise the profile of the peace talks and set the pace for negotiating humanitarian access to disputed regions, particularly the western Upper Nile region, ahead of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's planned visit to Sudan this month. 
Humanitarian agencies - which last week carried out a five-day "stop-gap intervention" in western Upper Nile - warned that a serious humanitarian crisis was in the offing in this region if fighting continued and the aid community could not secure access. 
A joint meeting of Sudan donors and aid agencies in early June strongly suggested that access to such key locations should be maintained for enough time to allow "meaningful interventions", and not just "hit-and-run activities". However, agencies are stuck for the moment with what access they can secure, humanitarian sources told IRIN.

Bashir optimistic 
The Sudanese government - which has insisted on a comprehensive ceasefire throughout the country before negotiating a final settlement to the conflict - has, during the course of the peace talks, indicated a growing optimism over the prospects for peace. In an address to the nation on 30 June, Bashir said he believed some "headway" was being made at the peace talks. 
"Indeed, peace is definitely coming since the people have realised, after a painful experience, that the war has lost meaning and logic," he said in a speech broadcast live on Sudanese television. 
"It [the war] means nothing to the people except killing destruction, hunger, homelessness, and backwardness," he added.
[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

Four Kenyan construction workers were among those injured this week when a Sudanese government aircraft bombed the Catholic bishop's compound in Ikotos town, Eastern Equatoria, southern Sudan, the Sudan Catholic Bishops Regional Conference (SCBRC) said on Thursday.
In a statement it released from Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, SCBC said the attack occurred on Tuesday night, when an Antonov aircraft bombed the residence of Bishop Johnson Akio Mutek, the auxiliary bishop of Torit Diocese. 
The statement, signed by John Tanza Mabusu, the SCBRC's communications coordinator, said the aircraft had dropped four bombs directly into the compound, damaging the priests' quarters, offices and a newly constructed youth centre. "Everything has been destroyed," Mutek said in the statement. "The bombs destroyed my residence to the ground, damaging 10 solar panels, radio communications equipment, one truck and other important diocesan properties."
SCRBC said  the same aircraft had also dropped 12 bombs on Isoke, a mission 48 km east of Ikotos, diocese of Torit primary and secondary schools in Isoke with the capacity of over 500 children, but said it could not confirm the details. 
This was second time this week that Sudanese government aircraft had allegedly bombed civilian targets in the south, despite ongoing peace talks between the warring parties in Nairobi under the auspices of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development.
On Monday, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) claimed that a government aircraft had bombed a village in northern Bahr al-Ghazal. In a statement, SPLM/A said a high-altitude Antonov bomber had dropped six bombs on Malwal Kon village, which had fallen 20 metres away from the compound of the International Rescue Committee (IRC), a US-based aid organisation working in the area, killing at least four civilians and injuring five more. 
According to the SPLM/A statement, Malwal Kon has no military significance since SPLM/A had no base in its vicinity, but it is home to several UN organisations and humanitarian NGOs. "The attack was therefore aimed at non-military targets - mostly the civil population, a church and compounds of humanitarian organisations," the statement noted.
It said the SPLM/A "strongly condemns the NIF [National Islamic Front] regime for this indiscriminate bombing that is intended to inflict grave and unjustifiable damage on the civil population. We also deplore the regime's targeting of NGOs and other civil institutions with the sole purpose of interrupting the flow of humanitarian assistance and relief distribution."

International human rights groups have expressed concern over what they describe as a "sharp increase" in death sentences this year in the Darfur region of western Sudan.
The London-based human rights organisation, Amnesty International (AI), on Friday said it considered the Sudanese penal code, which is based on the Islamic [sharia] law as "cruel, inhuman and degrading". Punishments under sharia include limb amputations and death by crucifixion. The organisation said this was inconsistent with international human rights law.
According to AI, at least 19 people have been executed in Darfur since the beginning of this year, without being given the opportunity to defend themselves, as required by international law.  "Many more run the risk of losing their lives unless this alarming trend is halted," it warned. 
"This is state-sanctioned killing at its worse, with those suspected having little or no recourse to defend themselves," AI said. "The judicial authorities in Sudan must ensure that all prisoners are guaranteed every opportunity to defend themselves, including the right of appeal to a higher tribunal, and to seek commutation of the sentence."
According to AI, emergency courts were established in both Northern and Southern Darfur in May 2001 to deal with offences such as armed robberies, murders and the illegal possession of weapons. The courts are headed by two military judges and one civilian judge, and do not allow representation of the accused until the appeal stage of the proceedings, the rights organisation said. 

The civil war in Sudan has in recent months reached its "deadliest phase", due to the increased acquisition of lethal weapons by both sides, the International Crisis Group (ICG) has warned. This was enabling them to fight more conventional and frequent engagements, not only killing a greater number of soldiers but also producing more extensive collateral damage than before.
In a hard-hitting report, released on Thursday, the Brussels-based international think-tank said oil revenues had enabled the Sudanese government to purchase more weapons and adopt "more brutal tactics" in driving civilians out of oil areas. Meanwhile, the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) had acquired additional quantities of sophisticated weapons, enabling it to engage government troops in "more intensive conventional" battles. 
"After nearly two decades, the Sudanese civil war has reached its deadliest phase. Both sides have more lethal weapons and are fighting more conventional battles," the ICG report, entitled, "Dialogue of Destruction: Organising for peace as the war in Sudan escalates", said. 
According to the report, released to coincide with a new round of talks, which opened in  the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on 17 June, under the auspices of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the bloodiest battles in Sudan's history had been fought during this past dry season between January and June.
The Sudanese conflict began in 1983, when the Sudanese government, led at the time by former President Ja'far Numayri, imposed Islamic shari'ah law on the entire country, including the mostly Christian and animist south. At least two million people, mainly civilians, have been killed in the war since then, according to humanitarian sources. 
Meanwhile, peace efforts have been bogged down, because, as frequently claimed by key countries within the wider international community, they "lacked leverage" to move the warring parties towards peace. "Leverage does not grow on trees. It is created through leadership in the development of a multilateral strategy and its judicious execution," the report said.
"Western countries must refrain from repeating such statements, as they increase perceptions among Sudanese parties that the leverage the West does enjoy will not be used during the new set of negotiations - perceptions that in fact reduce outside leverage in the manner of a self-fulfilling prophesy," it added. 
The major sticking points dividing Sudanese parties include the separation of religion and state, and the distribution of power and wealth. However, self-determination for the south, appears to stand above other issues as the potential "ultimate spoiler" of the peace process, according to ICG.
It went on to say that the divergent positions held by the warring parties were too entrenched to be reconciled through conventional facilitation alone. ICG was therefore urging the regional players, and key players from the international community with influence on both sides to use their leverage to compel both parties to move towards peace. 
"More forceful diplomatic intervention will be required than is currently envisioned," its report said. "The most visible missing ingredient of a potentially successful IGAD peace effort is coordination of pressures and incentives."
The ICG urged the US government, which joined the efforts to achieve peace in Sudan late last year, to "work closely" with Egypt, Sudan's "most important neighbour", to lead efforts to support the peace process. At the same time, the US and other international players, such as Norway and the UK, should "signal high-level political commitment" on their part by devoting political resources to the process. 
"With battle lines and negotiating positions so clearly drawn, the efforts to energise the IGAD peace process have so far been useful, but not sufficient. The window of opportunity for peace in Sudan is beginning to close. A much more robust effort must be undertaken both by the IGAD states and, in their support, by the international community if peace is to be made," ICG said its statement released. 
"In the first instance, this requires quick construction of a considerably more detailed peace strategy, including the organisation and deployment of serious leverage. Absent this, the Sudanese people will be condemned to increasing death and destruction, and a wide swathe of Africa will remain subject to the destabilising consequences," it added.

The EU on Tuesday expressed grave concern about the humanitarian situation in many parts of Sudan, particularly in western Upper Nile (Unity/Wahdah State), Eastern Equatoria and Bahr al-Ghazal - all in the south and affected by serious fighting.
Noting the universal humanitarian principle that "civilian populations must be protected from the consequences of military operations", the EU called for "unrestricted, immediate and unlimited access by international humanitarian agencies" to assist these populations, whether directly or indirectly affected by the conflict.
For the past three months, western Upper Nile has been one of the areas most affected by flight denials to aid agencies, while access has also been denied in wide areas of Bahr al-Ghazal, Equatoria and Bahr al-Jabal, according to aid workers. Humanitarian actors working in Sudan estimate that between 150,000 and 300,000 people were displaced in western Upper Nile alone between January and April.
Humanitarian agencies - currently engaged in a five-day "stop-gap intervention" in western Upper Nile - warn that a serious humanitarian crisis is in the offing in this region if fighting continues and the aid community cannot secure access. 
A joint meeting of donors to Sudan and aid agencies in early June strongly suggested that access to such key locations should be maintained for long enough to allow "meaningful interventions", and not just hit-and-run activities, but agencies are stuck for the moment with what access they can secure, according to humanitarian sources.
The UN and the US have made strong calls for unimpeded humanitarian access in recent months - the latter remarking at a US Congressional hearing on 5 June that there was "an inextricable link" between its peace efforts and more immediate gains on humanitarian access and respect for human rights.
Donors to Sudan and aid agencies operating under the Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS) umbrella came out in early June with "a clear and unambiguous message" to all parties in Sudan to ensure "unimpeded humanitarian access to all populations in need". In particular, they called for increased access to key locations in western Upper Nile and Eastern Equatoria, before the imminent arrival of the rainy season, which will hamper aid interventions. 
The joint donors' meeting noted "an increasing number of instances" where access and humanitarian principles were being subverted by administrative procedures, and the impression that the intention was to add restrictions, create ambiguity and "deny people in need".
In its statement on Tuesday, the EU also welcomed the opening of substantive peace negotiations in Kenya last week (17 June) - expected to last several weeks - between the government of Sudan and the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SDLM/A), under the auspices of the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD). 
It called on the government and SPLM/A to decisively engage in the IGAD peace process, and reiterated its appeal "for a comprehensive ceasefire as part of a comprehensive and just peace negotiation process".
Recent months have seen the US, in particular, seek to inject new life into the IGAD peace process (which has shown little success over the years) in conjunction with Kenya, leading the process from within IGAD, as well as the UK, Norway, Switzerland, Egypt and other states. 
"The consensus among the parties to the conflict and countries coordinating with the US is that instead of introducing an entirely new proposal, peace negotiations will only develop momentum and succeed if they are undertaken through an existing framework to which both parties are agreed in principle," US Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Walter H. Kansteiner stated in a recent outline of American policy on Sudan.
The IGAD framework was "the only vehicle for peace that fits this need at this time" and - with several key points from a separate Egyptian-Libyan Initiative (ELI) included - was "the strongest and most viable forum for peace discussions", he said.
[http://www.state.gov/p/af/rls/rm/10925.htm]
More importantly, Kansteiner added, "the IGAD framework is the only agreement signed by both parties to the conflict that resolves and acknowledges critical issues like self-determination for the south, religion and state, and governance". 
The EU stated on Tuesday that it was ready to support the process of economic and social development through linkages between relief, rehabilitation and development with a view to alleviating poverty, "subject to progress toward a peace settlement".
After nine years of trying, and failing, to resolve the Sudanese civil war, IGAD is trying to steer a new course, with the Kenyan special envoy, Gen Lazarus Sumbeiywo, pursuing a strict agenda and time frame "in a do-or-die negotiating effort", according to John Prendergast, co-director of the Africa programme of the International Crisis Group (ICG).
Negotiating peace in Sudan is beyond the scope of IGAD alone, and will require greater commitment, effort and leverage on the part of the broader international community, in close partnership with regional states, if it is to succeed, he said.
"In the absence of such a commitment, the best chance in years to end a generation of war will surely slip away," Prendergast told the US Congress on 5 June.

Church World Service (CWS), an umbrella group of Christian organisations in the US, has appealed for urgent support for relief efforts to assist thousands of families displaced in Rubkona County, southern Sudan, by government military action in the oil-rich area.
CWS said in a statement on Monday that it was helping partner organisations in the area to assist some 4,000 families (comprising 3,000 internally displaced and 1,000 host families) around Chotchar and Touc.
The flat scrub of the Upper Nile region offered no protection from the government's aerial bombardments or attacks by helicopters, it said, and people had crossed many small rivers and swamps in search of whatever limited security they could find.
The government has launched "a massive dry-season offensive in the oilfields [including western Upper Nile]... aided by thousands of its forces, redeployed as a result of the Nuba Mountains ceasefire [in Southern Kordofan]," John Prendergast, co-director for Africa of the International Crisis Group, told a US Congressional hearing on 5 June. 
Khartoum has consistently denied that it is targeting civilian populations in oil areas, saying that it aims to make the areas safe for oil operations, and has accused the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) of escalating military operations and causing the deterioration of humanitarian conditions in Unity State/western Upper Nile.
The internally displaced people (IDPs) who are being reached in western Upper Nile are receiving blankets, family-sized mosquito nets, cooking pots, tarpaulins for makeshift shelters, fishing equipment and hand tools, according to CWS. 
Families hosting the IDPs were also receiving mosquito nets and fishing equipment, while CWS's local partners were bring trained on ways of improving their capacity to respond to this and future emergencies, it said.
"Support is urgently needed for these relief and recovery efforts," the agency added. CWS is the relief, development, and refugee assistance ministry of 36 Protestant, Orthodox and Anglican denominations, and works with indigenous organisations in more than 80 countries "to support sustainable self-help development, refugee and emergency needs, and help address the root causes of poverty and powerlessness".
[http://www.churchworldservice.org/]
CWS called on the public to urge the US to stay involved in Sudan as long as human rights continued being violated, and to continue in its search for peace. It also urged people to urge the US Senate leadership to push forward with the Sudan Peace Act so that the discussion of capital market sanctions could move forward.
Humanitarian, religious and human rights groups have repeatedly spoken of a link between oil exploration and extraction in Upper Nile, and alleged a "scorched earth" policy by the government to depopulate oil areas and make them safe for oil production.
They have also claimed that oil revenues had enabled the Sudanese government to double its military expenditure in the last two years, escalating the violence in the 19-year-old civil war.
Numerous speakers suggested at the 5 June US Congressional hearing on Sudan that the US should move forward with this act (currently languishing in legislative limbo) in order to provide leverage on oil companies involved in Sudan, and thus on the Sudanese government, to engage meaningfully in a peace process.
US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Walter H. Kansteiner said the White House was opposed to sections of the proposed legislation which would sanction access oil companies active in Sudan, because it would set "a precedent for political interference in US capital markets".
American companies are already barred from investing in Sudan, which remains on Washington's list of state sponsors of terrorism. 
The Sudanese ambassador to the US, Khidr Harun Ahmad, has said pressure groups intent on distorting Sudan's image are promoting the Sudan Peace Act.
Sanctions against international firms engaged in oil production in Sudan would "eliminate even the modest gains in the standard of living of ordinary Sudanese, both north and south", he said, in a note for the record of the US Congress hearing.

The Sudanese government has said it will send a letter to US President George W. Bush to clarify its position after his call last Thursday, 20 June, on Khartoum to demonstrate more serious commitment to ending the Sudanese civil war.
Minister for External Relations Mustafa Uthman Isma'il said the government welcomed without reservations Bush's call for an end to the war, but was displeased that he had not touched on the need for the other warring party - the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) - to do the same.
Speaking at a public function in Washington DC, USA, Bush said there was no question that the Khartoum government had made "some useful contributions in cracking down on terror" since the 11 September events, but also that it "can and must do more".
[see Bush's remarks at: http://www.state.gov/p/af/] 
"Sudan's government must understand that ending its sponsorship of terror outside Sudan is no substitute for efforts to stop war inside Sudan," Bush stated.
"Sudan's government cannot continue to talk peace but make war, must not continue to block and manipulate UN food deliveries, and must not allow slavery to persist," the US president added. 
The SPLM/A stated on Monday that an Antonov bombing raid on Malual Kon, northern Bahr al-Ghazal, on Sunday morning (in which four people were allegedly killed and five more seriously injured) was intended to interrupt humanitarian assistance, and was "a blunt response" to Bush's statement. 
Isma'il called on the US to direct its call for an to end the Sudanese civil war to all parties involved, and not restrict it to the government alone, the Arabic language newspaper Al-Ra'y al-Amm reported in Khartoum on Monday. He also reiterated the Sudanese government's frequently stated commitment to reaching a comprehensive ceasefire agreement.
US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Walter H Kansteiner testified at an American Congressional hearing on Sudan on 5 June that Washington was committed to pushing all the actors involved "to a serious, comprehensive and, hopefully, lasting peace process". [See: http://www.state.gov/p/af/rls/rm/10925.htm]
Al-Ra'y al-Amm on Monday quoted the Sudanese presidential adviser on political affairs, Dr Qutbi al-Mahdi, as saying that Bush's statement, which was "prejudiced and biased" against Khartoum, could be understood in terms of "the magnitude of pressure being exerted on the US administration" by rightist Christian groups because of Washington's involvement in peace issues in Sudan.
Al-Mahdi insisted that relief aid was going to the victims [of the civil war] and not the government, in contrast to what he called "the rebels' usurpation of relief food and imposition of taxes on affected war victims, for whom the aid was meant".
He also took issue with Bush's reference to slavery, saying that talk of slavery was "meaningless" since international groups had refuted its existence in Sudan, the report added.
A US-led eminent persons group on slavery, abduction and forced servitude in Sudan reported in late May that "abductions of civilians and forcible recruitment by the armed forces of all sides in the war is commonplace". [full story at
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=28003]
Of particular concern, the panel said, was a pattern of abuses occurring in conjunction with attacks by pro-government militias known as murahilin on villages in areas controlled by the SPLM/A near the boundary between northern and southern Sudan.
The experts urged Sudanese President Umar Hasan al-Bashir to "take the lead in launching a campaign to make clear to all his government's firm opposition to these practices in all their forms".
Bush said on Thursday that his special envoy for peace in Sudan, John Danforth, had "made progress toward a ceasefire and improved delivery of humanitarian aid to such places as the Nuba Mountains region in Southern Kordofan, south-central Sudan. 
The US would continue its search for peace in Sudan, seek to end Sudan's sponsorship of terror, and would "promote human rights and the foundations of a just peace within Sudan itself".
Washington wanted all sides to "work diligently" towards peace, delivering deeds rather than mere words, Kansteiner told the US Congressional hearing on Sudan on 5 June. In this regard, he said, the government in Khartoum would have much to prove, since "the US considers the onus of ending the civil war rests squarely on the shoulders of the government". 
The surest way Khartoum could now display its peaceful intentions would be to "fully collaborate with US and UN humanitarian initiatives by providing unrestricted international humanitarian access to civilians in need", Roger Winter, Assistant Administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), told the same US Congressional hearing.

The recent development of a treatment for leishmaniasis, also known as black fever, a disease that each year afflicts some 500,000 people globally and kills at least 60,000, offers a ray of hope for thousands of Sudanese who die each year from the disease for lack of treatment.
The United Nations' World Health Organisation (WHO) said in a statement this week that scientists had developed a new treatment found to be at least 95 percent effective in patients who developed the more lethal "visceral" form of leishmaniasis. 
The disease is found in parts of 88 countries, but about 90 percent of all black fever cases occur in five countries - India, Brazil, Sudan, Nepal and Bangladesh. In the 1990s, Sudan suffered a crisis with 100,000 deaths among people at risk, according to the WHO.
The symptoms of visceral leishmaniasis include bouts of fever, substantial weight loss, swelling of the spleen and liver, and anaemia (occasionally serious). If left untreated, the fatality rate can be as high as 100 percent. 
Visceral leishmaniasis can cause large-scale epidemics with high case fatality. For example, western Upper Nile (also known as Unity, or Wahdah, State) in southern Sudan experienced a major outbreak between 1984 and 1994. This was the first epidemic in this area, and people were therefore very susceptible to the disease. 
Because of an accumulation of risk factors such as civil unrest, disruption of health systems, malnutrition, underlying diseases and due to absence of diagnostic facilities and first-line drugs at local level, the mortality rate was very high and 40,000 people were reported to have died of the disease.
WHO cited studies indicating that in some villages up to half the population succumbed to the disease, and said one report suggested that during this decade, visceral leishmaniasis claimed 100,000 lives in a population of around 300,000 in western Upper Nile. 
[See: http://www.who.int/emc/diseases/leish/index.html]
In Sudan, where the visceral form is known as kala-azar, leishmaniasis is most common in the conflict-affected Blue Nile, Upper Nile, Jonglei and Kassala regions, as well as in the area north of the capital, Khartoum. There are also indications that the disease is present in the Nuba Mountains region of Southern Kordofan State, south-central Sudan, according to humanitarian sources. 
Increasing disease activity has also been noted in the eastern state of Al-Qadarif, notably along the Rahad and Dinder Rivers, while activity - formerly prevalent - has been decreasing in Sinnar and Sinjah, according to US-based Programme for Monitoring Emergency Diseases (ProMed).
The international medical organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres complained in February that systematic looting of the village of Nimne in oil-rich western Upper Nile had disrupted a kala-azar project with 107 patients under treatment and a basic health care unit with 1,700 to 2,000 consultations per month.
Over 40,000 fatal cases were reported from the western Upper Nile between 1984 and 1991, and the death toll among the Nuer and Dinka peoples in southern Sudan was estimated at 200,000 between 1988 and 1995, it added.
[http://www.fas.org/promed/] 
The new drug, Miltefosine, the first oral drug developed against leishmaniasis has already been approved for use in India, which has half the global burden of the disease, according to WHO, which was involved in the development of the treatment with the Indian government, the German biopharmaceutical company Zentaris, the Tropical Diseases Research, the United Nations Development Programme and the World Bank.
"This is fantastic progress," WHO Director-General Gro Harlem Brundtland noted in the statement. "We now have a powerful new tool to fight this terrible disease. The combined efforts of these partners have opened a new era in the fight against visceral leishmaniasis. In doing so, we can free the poor from one of their many burdens."
Considered one of the world's most neglected diseases, leishmaniasis - a parasitic "wasting" disease, transmitted through the bite of a sand fly - afflicts some of the world's poorest people, with 80 percent of its victims earning less than US $2 a day.
Until now, all treatments for leishmaniasis had had substantial drawbacks, ranging from high cost to high toxicity, and even causing irreversible damage such as diabetes, the WHO stated this week.
The current treatment for one patient can cost as much as 250,000 Sudanese pounds (about  $97), about eight times the average monthly wages of a Sudanese government employee, according to ProMed.
The cost of current treatments (Pentostam, antimony, amphotericin B or pentamidine) is prohibitive for most Sudanese sufferers from leishmaniasis, and neither do the health authorities in Sudan have the capacity at present to launch a concerted campaign against the disease - which is not the highest priority given the depth and breadth of other humanitarian problems in the country, according to aid workers.
Leishmaniasis disease is often related to environmental changes such as deforestation, building of dams, new irrigation schemes, urbanisation and migration of non-immune people to endemic areas, according to the WHO.
http://www.who.int/emc/diseases/leish/leisdis1.html
The disease seriously hampers productivity and vitally needed socioeconomic progress, and the public health impact has been grossly underestimated for many years, mainly due to lack of awareness of its serious impact on health. The incidence of the disease is also severely underestimated, so that the actual health loss associated with it is greater than official figures suggest.

The government of Sudan has agreed to an extension of the local ceasefire agreement in the Nuba Mountains region of south-central Sudan from Thursday, and the rebel SPLM/A is set to follow suit, but there are still problems with its scope and implementation.
The National Congress government in Khartoum has committed itself to extending the ceasefire agreement for another six months, starting from Thursday 20 June, Republic of Sudan Radio reported on Monday.
And SPLM/A spokesman Samson Kwaje confirmed to IRIN on Wednesday evening that the rebel movement would also agree to an extension of the ceasefire, though he said he did not know the duration or other details because the full results of an SPLM/A-Nuba congress on the matter were still not known.
Additional details would be available on Thursday, when the current ceasefire agreement comes up for renewal, Kwaje added.
For the government's part, foreign ministry under secretary, Mutrif Siddiq Ali Numayri, said the agreement would continue along the lines of the accord reached in January between the government and the SPLM/A-Nuba region, Sudan Radio broadcast on Monday.
Numayri said the government had agreed to extend the agreement because of its importance to the peace and stability of the Nuba Mountains region, Southern Kordofan State, and as a means of promoting its development, the report added.
The government and SPLM/A-Nuba signed the renewable six-month Nuba Mountains ceasefire agreement, covering an area of some 80,000 sq km, on 19 January this year, after six days of closed-door negotiations facilitated by the US and Swiss governments in Burgenstock, central Switzerland. 
The agreement has been implemented - and generally adhered to - under the supervision of a Joint Military Commission (JMC), comprising representatives of the government, the SPLM/A and of neutral third parties.
The Nuba ceasefire had, so far, brought "mixed results" for the civilian population of the SPLM/A-controlled areas of Nuba, and needed to translate into the achievement of minimum food aid targets to avert a looming food crisis in the region, humanitarian agencies warned in late May. 
On the positive side, they said, many Nuba people had welcomed remission from the threat of military attacks and aerial bombardment, and the unprecedented return of civilians from government-controlled areas.
However, bureaucratic issues and delays had contributed to a "growing erosion of confidence in the ceasefire arrangement", and it was essential to ensure unimpeded humanitarian access and to strengthen the mechanisms required for effective political pressure to be brought to bear on all actors, they added. 
Due to difficulties in delivering humanitarian assistance in the Nubas, particularly to SPLM/A-controlled areas, there was "growing evidence" to suggest that the vulnerability of the population had actually increased during the life of the ceasefire, partially due to the earlier than usual exhaustion of household food reserves brought on by the need to support returnees, according to NGOs organisations active in Sudan.
The government agreed in January to "unfettered humanitarian access to Nuba" but had continued to delay and deny flights into SPLM/A-controlled areas until mid-May - just weeks before the rainy season would make airstrips inaccessible there, Roger Winter, Assistant Administrator at the US Agency for International Development (USAID), told a US Congressional hearing on Sudan on 5 June. 
In addition, "the government had launched a massive dry-season offensive in the oilfields [including western Upper Nile]... aided by thousands of its forces redeployed as a result of the Nuba Mountains ceasefire," John Prendergast, co-director for Africa of the International Crisis Group told a US Congressional hearing on 5 June. 
The importance of the Nuba Mountains ceasefire agreement was that it was "formal and detailed", and included the element of independent verification, which may offer "a small model to look at" for other areas of war-torn Sudan, according to humanitarian and diplomatic sources.
lso, flight clearance was being carried out by the JMC, and not the government, and people were enjoying a new freedom of movement, a start to economic revitalisation and "an overall feeling of optimism", according to Roger Winter. There was now some hope of using this successful initiative as a model for zones of tranquillity in which to assist vulnerable populations elsewhere in Sudan, he added.
Yet, John Prendergast argued at the same Congressional hearing that "well-meaning efforts to secure Days of Tranquillity and localised ceasefires was misplaced", when what was needed was "blanket access for humanitarian aid" and an end to the warring parties' veto over where relief agencies could provide people in need with assistance.
"We have legitimised the veto over and over again, most recently with the focus on the Days of Tranquillity," Prendergast complained, saying that Washington and the UN must re-focus on the fundamental objective of humanitarian diplomacy: the principle of unfettered access.

The government of Sudan has warned that it may pull of out peace talks with the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) over the rebel group's seizure - in a lighting attack on Sunday 9 June - of the garrison town of Kapoeta in Eastern Equatoria, southern Sudan.
The presidential peace adviser, Ghazi Salah al-Din al-Atabani, said the government would complain to the US about the rebel attack, because it contravened a truce (signed in December and due to expire at the end of June) covering the areas between Kapoeta, Pibor and Boma, and intended to allow for cattle vaccinations.
The SPLM/A has celebrated the seizure of Kapoeta as a disaster for the government and a major victory for itself, saying that it killed some 200 soldiers and seized vehicles, arms and food supplies. Rebel sources have also spoken of following up on the victory by attempting to capture the strategic, government-held towns of Torit and Juba.
The SPLM/A lost control of Kapoeta to the government in 1991, but said it had no intention of relinquishing control again. "Of course, we are committed to peace talks, but this will not stop us from continuing military operations," an SPLA commander, Oyai Deng Ajak, told the BBC in Kapoeta. 
The Sudanese army had already pledged to reassemble its forces and retake Kapoeta, and there had  already been several Antonov bombing attacks on the town, the report added. 
Humanitarian sources told IRIN on Thursday of a shocking situation in Kapoeta, with bodies lying on the ground, and of a truck which hit an antitank mine, with an unknown number of casualties, in Kapoeta.
Foreign journalists were flown into Kapoeta, where they bore witness to the sight and smell of dead government soldiers lying in earthen trenches, with the SPLM/A in no hurry to bury them. 
Atabani said Khartoum would ask the US to demand an immediate halt to SPLM/A actions, and that the seizure of Kapoeta could affect future peace talks and other agreements, according to Reuters news agency. 
Peace talks are scheduled to open under the auspices of the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on Monday. 
During April, the US peace envoy to Sudan, John Danforth, said both sides had offered proposals to IGAD suggesting "a rethinking of previously held positions", and had thereby shown it was possible to agree on contentious issues and to permit international monitoring of the implementation of their agreements.
Yet there is not much hope held out for significant progress at the current round of IGAD talks,  years of previous talks having produced little, especially as there were "no new ideas on the table" and no serious international pressure on the government or SPLM/A to negotiate seriously, according to regional analysts. 
The Sudanese government has demanded that the SPLM/A "forego all of the military advantage which it has gained because of the illegal attack", and stop any other attacks in that part of the country.
Muhammad Ahmad Dirdiery, charge d'affaires at the Sudanese embassy in Nairobi, said Kapoeta was in a "Zone of Tranquillity" under an agreement brokered by Danforth, in order to allow the eradication of rinderpest, a claim which the SPLM/A has denied.
Dirdiery told the BBC that the SPLA had taken "undue advantage" of the period of tranquillity to seize Kapoeta, and that the US response would determine the nature of Khartoum's participation in the IGAD talks set for Nairobi.
Danforth said in May that the usefulness of outside intervention would depend on the willingness of the parties to the conflict to live up to any commitments made, and that any participation by the US should be reviewed continually in light of this. "A breakdown in the implementation of the four test agreements would bring into question the parties' commitment to peace," he added.
Meanwhile, a ceasefire agreement in the Nuba Mountains area of Southern Kordofan, south-central Sudan, has generally held, although it has effectively diverted government and rebel military forces to western Upper Nile and northern Bahr al-Ghazal, where fighting has intensified, according to media and humanitarian sources.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has expressed concern over the continued humanitarian access denial to the oil-rich region of western Upper Nile in southern Sudan, where constant insecurity, resulting from ongoing fighting between the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), and the Sudan government, has caused the displacement of tens of thousands of civilians. 
Laura Melo, WFP spokeswoman for the Horn of Africa and Great Lakes region, told IRIN on Wednesday that the issue of humanitarian access denials to specific areas of southern Sudan was not a new situation.
However, she added, the decision by the Sudanese government to deny relief agencies access to western Upper Nile (also known as Unity/Wahdah State) in the past three months was increasing the vulnerability of civilians, whose food supply from harvests garnered earlier in the year was already thinning out.
"For the past three months, Unity State has been one of the areas most affected by these flight denials. But because we have been denied access, we can't go there so we don't know what the situation there is like," Melo said.
"We have been attempting to solve the access problems to areas in the southern Sudan, with particular emphasis on western Upper Nile, because it is one of the most vulnerable areas in southern Sudan," she added. "They are now in the lean season and, as the year advances, their harvest will continue to run out."
During the month, WFP, which works with other relief agencies in southern Sudan under the Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS) consortium, distributed some 5,255 mt to some 875,000 beneficiaries, representing 51 percent of the total tonnage planned for the month of May in the southern sector. 
The agency stated that nearly 20 percent of the shortfall in planned deliveries in southern Sudan in May affected the Nuba Mountains, where WFP had delivered only a small amount of food while sorting its logistical system.
However, it cited insecurity and flight denials in western Upper Nile and Bieh State as the main reasons for the overall shortfall.
In addition to western Upper Nile/Unity State, humanitarian access has been denied to wide areas of Bahr al-Ghazal, Tambura (in Western Equatoria), Yei (in Bahr al-Jabal) and Upper Nile.
At the start of April, some 40 locations in southern Sudan were listed by the government of Sudan as being denied both flight access and general humanitarian access "for security reasons", which effectively cut off humanitarian supply lines into many parts of western Upper Nile, Eastern Equatoria and Bahr al-Ghazal, according to relief officials.
On 16 May, the Khartoum administration further increased restrictions on humanitarian access by announcing a flight ban for the entire area of Unity State (encompassing western Upper Nile).
The Sudanese government has demanded the transportation of relief materials and humanitarian aid to affected areas from within Sudan and not from "centres abroad", on the basis of transparency, clarity and national sovereignty.
Karam al-Din Abd al-Mawla, the Sudanese Minister for International Cooperation, said on 29 May that the success and management of OLS relief operations to affected populations  depended on its positioning within Sudan, which would also provide cheaper land and river delivery alternatives to costly air transportation of relief materials.
A number of human rights groups have accused the Khartoum government of waging a depopulation war against civilians in western Upper Nile region, as part of a wider plan to gain control of oil-rich areas.
According to a report by the European Coalition on Oil in Sudan, released in May, an estimated 50,000 civilians have been forced to flee recent military operations.
"Civilians continue to be forcibly displaced, villages burned to the ground, and helicopter gunships still kill women and children in the south," the report charged.
"The resulting vast empty regions support the allegation that the government is knowingly and deliberately depopulating this oil-rich area in order to make it secure for oil business," according to the report, entitled "Depopulating Sudan's Oil Region".
Khartoum denies targeting civilian populations in oil areas, and has blamed the SPLM/A for escalating military operations and causing the deterioration of humanitarian conditions in Unity/western Upper Nile.
Responding to the accusations, Muhammad Ahmad Dirdeiry, charge d'affaires at the Sudanese embassy in Nairobi told IRIN on Wednesday that it was becoming increasingly difficult to "regulate the war", in the light of mounting accusations which both sides have traded regarding violation of agreements in a number of regions declared tranquillity zones.
"These accusations are not new," he said. "This only indicates that it is very difficult to regulate war. The antidote to all these problems really is a comprehensive ceasefire."
The government of Sudan has consistently called for a comprehensive ceasefire in order to create conditions conducive to peace, while the SPLM/A argues that such a ceasefire is only possible within the context of a political settlement that delivers a just and sustainable peace.
"We appeal to the international community to redouble efforts for a comprehensive ceasefire," Dirdiery added.

At least 1.8 million Africans fled their homes due to conflict during 2001, the U.S. Committee for Refugees (USCR) has said in its latest global report on refugees and displaced people.
'The World Refugee Survey 2002', which was released on Thursday, said those who fled in 2001 brought to at least 13.9 million the number of Africans who "remained uprooted at the start of 2002 as a result of long-term violence and repression." Sudan, it added, was the largest source of uprooted people, with 4.4 million of its people displaced. 
The USCR estimated that some 1.1 million people fled Liberia and Sierra Leone. Angola, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Kenya, and Somalia also provided large numbers of displaced people.
DRC, Kenya and Sudan also figured among the five African countries hosting the largest numbers of refugees. The other two are Tanzania and Zambia.
The Washington D.C-based organisation deplored the fact that peace efforts in numerous countries had not brought genuine peace. Other obstacles, including insufficient funding from the international community, hampered the work of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and other aid agencies.
The situation will remain "unchanged for the foreseeable future unless peace negotiations and post-conflict humanitarian assistance prove to be genuine efforts, rather than half-hearted gestures," the USCR said.
The 2000 report contains reports on refugee situations in 38 African countries and reviews 133 countries worldwide. The USCR is a nonprofit humanitarian organisation that works for the protection and assistance of refugees, asylum seekers and internally displaced persons around the world.
[For more information about USCR and its report, please visit http://www.refugees.org ]

Nairobi, 10 June 2002 (IRIN) - The Sudanese presidential peace adviser, Ghazi Salah al-Din al-Atabani, has criticised certain US groups' "enmity" towards the government of Sudan in the wake of the US Congressional hearing on the country on 5 June. 
Salah al-Din said in a press statement that certain groups hostile to the Sudanese government wanted to confuse American policy towards the country, and these would weaken any progress achieved by the US peace envoy, John Danforth, the official Sudan News Agency (Suna) reported on Sunday.
The special Congressional hearing, was another effort to help advance the quest for peace in Sudan, according to Henry J. Hyde, chairman of the US Committee on International Relations.
Khartoum had officially asked to participate in the hearing in order to explain its point of view and "reflect facts", according the Sudanese ambassador to the US, Khidr Harun Ahmad, as cited by Suna on Saturday.
The request was rejected on the basis that governments were not usually invited to participate in these sittings, according to Khidr Harun, who said he had hoped to moderate the "flagrant hostility" of most of the participants, and guarantee balance in the session. 
Some of the institutions of the US administration were confused or dishonest, and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) had called for "confiscation [erosion] of the sovereignty of the Sudan government", Suna quoted Salah al-Din as saying. The demands included in the USAID testimony to Congress would be rejected by Khartoum, he added.
Roger Winter, USAID assistant administrator, testified at the hearing that Khartoum was erecting bureaucratic and operational barriers to the delivery of humanitarian assistance in Sudan, in a manner "so consistent as to amount to a deliberate strategy".
There was credible evidence that the frequency of attacks on civilians was increasing, and Khartoum had restricted access to western Upper Nile, where veteran aid workers had described the condition of 150,000 to 300,000 internally displaced people as "the worst they have ever seen", he said.
USAID hoped to make use of Washington's political leverage to support the UN in its efforts "to negotiate cross-line access and eliminate government of Sudan access denials", Winter said.
The agency was also exploring ways to revisit the current flight clearance system in order to "move beyond the government's unilateral ability to veto humanitarian flights", often for political reasons, he added. 
There have been positive achievements (like a ceasefire in the Nuba Mountains, and progress on the issues of slavery and abductions), but Khartoum still seems to be of two minds, "poised on the edge between a peace and war mentality", according to Winter.
Salah al-Din also criticised proponents of the draft Sudan Peace Act in the US, under which Washington would impose restrictions on oil companies operating in Sudan.
Numerous speakers suggested at the Congressional hearing that the US should move forward with this act (currently languishing in legislative limbo) in order to provide leverage on oil companies involved in Sudan, and thus on the Sudanese government, to engage meaningfully in a peace process.
US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Walter H. Kansteiner said the White House was opposed to sections of the proposed legislation which would sanction access oil companies active in Sudan, because it would be "a precedent for political interference in US capital markets".
American companies are already barred from investing in Sudan, which remains on Washington's list of state sponsors of terrorism. 
Khidr Harun said at the weekend that it was pressure groups intent on distorting the image of Sudan that were pushing for the Sudan Peace Act. Sanctions against international firms engaged in oil production in Sudan would "eliminate even the modest gains in the standard of living of ordinary Sudanese, both north and south", he said, in a note for the record of the US Congress hearing.
Khartoum, he said, was prepared to "adhere to the principles of sharing of power and wealth among all the peoples of Sudan", but bold action by the government of Sudan must be matched by bold action from the US to see through to the end its current peace initiative.

US hearing links peace efforts, humanitarian access

Nairobi, 7 June 2002 (IRIN) - Despite the misery being caused by the Sudanese civil war - Africa's longest-running and bloodiest - very little is being done to end the suffering of the helpless and innocent, Henry J. Hyde, chairman of the US Committee on International Relations, told a special Congressional hearing on Sudan on Wednesday.

"Somewhere in that land of misery today, a child will die, a mother will lose a limb and young women will be enslaved," he stated, saying Wednesday's hearing was another effort, one of many in the past decade, to help push the quest for peace in Sudan. 

"Unfortunately, a new generation of southern Sudanese are growing up in the midst of war and hopelessness," Hyde said, adding that the Sudanese government, which came to power by ousting a democratically elected government in 1989, "continues to mount a brutal military campaign against its powerless masses in the south".

He expressed regret that the US Senate had so far failed to appoint conferees in order to reconcile different versions of the Sudan Peace Act, which the US House of Representatives passed in June 2001 "in an effort to address some of the problems facing Sudan, to provide assistance to those fighting for democracy and freedom, and to punish those who trade in 'blood oil'". 

The US special peace envoy to Sudan, John Danforth, recently concluded that "this is the time for a major push for a compromise settlement", and that was, indeed, the case, according to numerous speakers at Wednesday's hearing, including Sudanese born Francis Deng, a senior academic at the US-based Brookings Institution, Massachusetts, USA.

Danforth's "pragmatic approach and incremental achievements on humanitarian issues" had generated a momentum for peace within and outside Sudan, he said, but the situation now required more assertive US leadership to end the war. 
"What is most needed now is a policy on Sudan - one in which the US is a central player, "Michael K. Young, chairman of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, said.
Bringing into force the House of Representatives-approved version of the Sudan Peace Act (now languishing in limbo, reportedly at the behest of the US administration) was a crucial first step in such a policy, in order to provide leverage on oil companies involved in Sudan, and thus on the Sudanese government, he added.
That point was echoed by Eric Reeves, a vocal opponent of the Khartoum government, who said it would be unwise to see the confidence-building measures proposed by Danforth as a clear and decisive policy response, when what was needed was to hold the Sudanese government to "a clear timetable and set of benchmarks in a fully credible and unified peace process".
Too often the Danforth report had "put the cart before the horse", with the peace envoy "unwilling to see that many important issues [including humanitarian access, the safety of civilians and an end to slavery and abductions] simply cannot be resolved without first securing a just peace", Reeves added. 
Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Walter H. Kansteiner testified that the Sudanese conflict had gone on too long, and that Washington was committed to pushing all the actors involved "to a serious, comprehensive and, hopefully, lasting peace process".
US strategic interests in Sudan involved denying it as a base of operations for international terrorism, working on a just and lasting peace, and pushing for unhindered humanitarian access, improved human rights and religious freedom, he said.
"We must now work diligently to demand deeds rather than mere words and, in this regard, the government in Khartoum will have much to prove," Kansteiner said. "The US considers the onus of ending the civil war rests squarely on the shoulders of the government."
He also emphasised the "inextricable link" between the search for peace in Sudan and gains in humanitarian access and human rights.
This was also a theme addressed by Roger Winter, Assistant Administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), who said the government of Sudan was erecting too many bureaucratic and operational barriers to the delivery of assistance to vulnerable populations, in a manner "so consistent as to amount to a deliberate strategy".
"The GoS [government of Sudan] continually obstructs the delivery of humanitarian assistance and the implementation of [rehabilitation and development] programmes in opposition areas. It delays operations, violates agreements, and denies access to humanitarian flights," he said.
In addition, the frequency of attacks on civilians was increasing, with credible reports from western Upper Nile [also known as Unity, or Wahdah, State] that the government military campaign was "directly targeting civilians and food stocks through intensified, high-altitude bombings and helicopter gunship attacks," Winter testified.
The government had restricted access to western Upper Nile, where an estimated 150,000 to 300,000 civilians have been displaced from their homes, and veteran aid workers have described the state of internally displaced people as "the worst they have ever seen," he said.
"Khartoum seems to be of two minds, poised on the edge between a peace and a war mentality," according to Winter.
The surest way it could now display its peaceful intentions to the US, which had committed itself to being a catalyst for peace, would be to "fully collaborate with US and UN humanitarian initiatives by providing unrestricted international humanitarian access to civilians in need", he added.
 

A joint meeting of donors to Sudan and aid agencies operating under the Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS) umbrella has come out with "a clear and unambiguous message" to all parties in Sudan to ensure "unimpeded humanitarian access to all populations in need".
The principle of "unimpeded access to those in need" must be pursued vigorously and persistently by donors, the United Nations and NGOs, it concluded.
In particular, these organisations should push for increased access to key locations in war-torn western Upper Nile (also known as Unity/Wahdah State) and to Eastern Equatoria, before the imminent arrival of the rainy season, which will hamper aid interventions, according to participants. 
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), in a humanitarian update covering the first five months of 2002, expressed deep concern about the fate of women and children caught up in the fighting, which continues to displace people from their homes in western Upper Nile. Humanitarian actors working in Sudan estimate that between 150,000 and 300,000 people were displaced in western Upper Nile alone between January and April.
The joint donors' meeting, held in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on Monday and Tuesday took place as the government of Sudan issued a schedule of clearances for humanitarian access flights for June that had caused "considerable concern", according to aid workers. 
Not only was access denied to some locations but others were put "under advisory", meaning held in abeyance, either because of a possible security risk to humanitarian personnel or because the place names were allegedly not known, they said.
Another requirement which had caused some alarm was that all humanitarian access to western Upper Nile/Unity, must be through government-controlled areas, primarily through the Northern Kordofan town of El Obeid (Al-Ubayyid). 
At the start of April, some 40 locations in southern Sudan were listed by the government of Sudan as being denied both flight access and general humanitarian access "for security reasons", which effectively cut off humanitarian supply lines into many parts of western Upper Nile, Eastern Equatoria and Bahr al-Ghazal, according to relief officials. 
On 16 May, the Khartoum administration further increased restrictions on humanitarian access by announcing a flight ban for the entire area of Unity/western Upper Nile.
The government last week agreed to a resumption of aid flows into the highly contested area of western Upper Nile, but on the condition that relief flights passed through the north. Khartoum said aid agencies would be permitted to fly relief to the oil-rich region for the first time in over two months, but on condition that the aid originated in government territory in northern Sudan, principally from El Obeid, humanitarian sources said.
UN sources told IRIN that government representatives had insisted that access to western Upper Nile/Unity would only be allowed through government-controlled territory in the north, for security reasons. However, no official agreement had been signed, and no written proposals had been put forward by the government negotiators, they added. 
Minister for International Cooperation, Karam al-Din Abd al-Mawla, last week outlined "basic and necessary principles" for the management of the OLS programme to assist vulnerable people in Sudan, including administration of the programme and delivery of assistance from inside the country, the official Sudan News Agency (Suna) reported on 30 May.
He said the transportation and delivery of relief should be undertaken from inside Sudan in the interest of transparency and clarity, besides the importance of "safeguarding the national sovereignty of the state", Suna reported.
Khartoum also pointed to the high cost of air transportation of relief supplies from outside the country, and suggested that transportation from inside by land and river would be more efficient, it said. Overall administration of humanitarian programmes should be from one office in Khartoum, with support activities from a branch office in Lokichoggio, northern Kenya, only when necessary, it quoted Abd al-Mawla as saying. 
Major changes in operating procedures should properly be made only as a result of discussions and negotiations involving all the parties to the tripartite agreement on humanitarian operations in Sudan: the government, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army and the OLS consortium, humanitarian sources informed IRIN on Wednesday. 
The three parties signed, in December 1999, Agreement on the Implementation of Principles Governing the Protection and Provision of Humanitarian Assistance to War-Affected Civilian Populations, which included a measure stating that war-affected civilian populations had the right to receive humanitarian assistance. 
The joint donors' meeting noted "an increasing number of instances" where access and humanitarian principles were being subverted by administrative procedures, and the impression was sometimes given that the intention was to add restrictions, create ambiguity and "deny people in need", according to informed sources.
It was decided at the joint donors' meeting to press for access to seven persistently denied locations in Eastern Equatoria, that a number of locations under government "advisory" should be assessed by OLS security to see if conditions allowed access, and that all OLS airstrips should be identified clearly on a map made available to the government and SPLM/A to avoid any possible confusion about locations.
As for western Upper Nile, where reports suggest a serious humanitarian crisis is in the making, the Nairobi meeting said locations in SPLM-controlled areas should continue to be accessed through the OLS base at Lokichoggio in northwestern Kenya - and not through El Obeid.
In addition, it strongly suggested that access to key locations should be maintained for long enough to allow "meaningful interventions", and not just hit-and-run activities, according to humanitarian sources.

Awut Deng Acuil, a peace worker in southern Sudan, has been declared a winner of the InterAction 2002 Humanitarian Award, in honour of her "extraordinary leadership" in promoting peace and development in the war-torn country.
InterAction, the American Council for Voluntary Action, is an umbrella organisation for international NGOs which have offices in the United States. 
Deng has been a longtime conflict resolution trainer with the New Sudan Council of Churches, and is a founding member of the Sudanese Women's Association of Nairobi and the Sudanese Women's Voice for Peace.
"Awut is an inspiration to us all," said Ken Hackett, executive director of the US-based Catholic Relief Services (CRS), an InterAction member organisation which has worked closely with Deng. 
"She is a person who has dedicated her life to bringing peace and reconciliation to this troubled region."
Deng, born and raised in southern Sudan, has been instrumental in people-to-people peace processes in the Bahr al-Ghazal and western Upper Nile regions, the momentum of which continues to grow slowly but steadily, according to humanitarian workers.
These processes have built on the success of the West Bank Dinka-Nuer Conference in Wunlit in March 1999 - endorsed by delegates, church leaders and the leadership of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) - which has since been followed by numerous other people-to-people agreements on the west and east banks of the Nile, involving members of the Anyuak, Dinka (Bor and Padang), Jie, Kachipo, Murle (Boma) and Nuer (Gawaar and Lou) ethnic groups.
While traditional hostilities have prevailed for generations among some of these ethnic groups, they have been aggravated, and often manipulated, by the warring parties in the course of the 19-year-old civil war, according to aid workers in Sudan.
People-to-people peace processes and conferences serve as a forum for people to face each other, discuss their differences and search for agreements to reconcile and make peace. Practical agreements are also hammered out over issues such as access to animal grazing areas, water points and the return of abducted children and women.
Such local peace agreements have also emphasised that all military and militia groups should respect the civilian population, allow displaced people and abducted women and children to return to their homes, and allow for freedom of movement, trade and communication across tribal areas. 
Deng's particular ability to bridge the divides that split local communities "gives courage and hope to others that most problems can be resolved through sensitive dialogue and understanding", Hackett added.

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has warned that a significant shortfall in funding for this year is "seriously hindering" its ability to undertake planned, regular humanitarian activities, as well as its capacity for emergency response.
The annual appeal for US $24.6 million for emergency programme interventions in the southern sector of Sudan was only 37 percent funded as of the end of April, and the $15.4 million shortage would have a negative impact on nutrition, primary health care, education and human rights promotion activities, the agency reported in a recent donor update.
For the northern sector, UNICEF requested $27.6 million (including an amended appeal for the Nuba Mountains region, Abyei and Raga) for emergency interventions in government-controlled areas, and had received $2.4 million by end of April, leaving a funding gap of $25.3 million.
The funding situation was "pretty chronic" and typified the situation for many aid agencies involved in Sudan, including NGOs, a UNICEF spokesman, Martin Dawes, told IRIN on Wednesday.
The agency would continue certain activities, such as immunisation, which was vital in southern Sudan, but others, including protection interventions for women and children, would be "seriously degraded", he said.
People had been saying that a serious crisis was emerging in western Upper Nile - possibly along the lines of the 1998 conflict-related famine in Bahr al-Ghazal - and, if that happened, "there could be big trouble, because agencies' capacity to respond is seriously eroded," Dawes added. 
In the southern sector, funding targets for family shelter and relief (for internally displaced (persons - IDPs - and other affected populations), mine-awareness activities, grass-root-level peace-building and, especially, eradication of the abduction of women and children were less than 20 percent funded - the last-named attracting no funding at all, according to the donor update. 
Nutrition activities, emergency basic education, demobilisation of child soldiers and protection of IDPs had also attracted less than 30 percent of the target, while water and sanitation activities had already been fully funded for the year, it added.
"Procurement of certain supplies has been hindered or stopped, and programmes are evaluating key staffing positions in order to downsize if necessary," UNICEF said.
It said it had not been able to procure a planned 2,500 primary health kits, which could limit emergency response capacity, and that it would be difficult or even impossible to purchase vaccines for outbreak response, if needed. "The potential impact in loss of human life, primarily, children," the agency warned.
With indicators from the field in southern Sudan indicating serious nutritional needs, UNICEF would not be able to respond without addition funding, it said, adding that the landmine awareness programme would be stopped entirely if funds did not arrive. 
In the northern sector, no target intervention had yet achieved 30 percent funding, while action against HIV/AIDS, mine awareness, community-led peace-building in Abyei, and basic services for people in Raga (which had many conflict-displaced people in 2001) had received no funding at all. Neither had action to abolish the practice of female genital mutilation, sometimes known as female circumcision, received any funding contribution for 2002.
In its donor update, UNICEF expressed concern over the situation of IDPs in war-torn western Upper Nile and the threat of families being uprooted by clashes between the Uganda People's Defence Forces (UPDF) and the Ugandan rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in Equatoria, southern Sudan.
"Fighting between the government of Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation [Movement/] Army [SPLM/A] continues to displace people from their homes in western Upper Nile," it said. Humanitarian actors working in Sudan estimate that between 150,000 and 300,000 people were displaced by fighting in western Upper Nile alone between January and April this year. 
UNICEF also noted that "a disturbing change" in the government's approval of humanitarian access flights in May had designated certain areas in southern Sudan "not recommended" for humanitarian operations.
In April and May, the Sudanese government imposed increased restrictions on both flight access and general humanitarian access "for security reasons", which effectively cut off humanitarian supply lines into many parts of western Upper Nile, Eastern Equatoria and Bahr al-Ghazal, according to relief officials. 
On 16 May, the Khartoum administration further increased restrictions on humanitarian access by announcing a flight ban for the entire area of Unity/Wahdah State (encompassing western Upper Nile).
In addition, with Sudan having granted permission to the UPDF to pursue the LRA within Sudan, clashes between these forces in Eastern Equatoria "threaten to displace families and deprive them of access to basic services such as health care, clean water and basic education", according to UNICEF. 
Though polio eradication efforts have met with some success, and the local ceasefire arrangement in the Nuba Mountains region of Southern Kordofan, south-central Sudan, has improved the environment for health and nutrition interventions there, progress on key humanitarian objectives remains unsatisfactory, according to the agency. 
"The humanitarian operation in Sudan continues in the context of the 19-year-old civil war, primarily over resources, between the government and the SPLM/A and other 'second-tier' parties to the conflict", and the impact of this on women and children continues to be "extremely negative", UNICEF added.

The Sudanese army and Popular Defence Forces (PDF) militias have claimed recent military victories in Bahr al-Ghazal State, southern Sudan, and in Blue Nile State, in the east of the country, during recent engagements.
The Sudanese army reported that it had destroyed rebel camps in Sabun, on the Raga-Aweil road, and Miri, both in western Bahr al-Ghazal, according to the Republic of Sudan Radio in Omdurman, outside the Sudanese capital, Khartoum.
The army had also claimed military victories in Magok and Maryam, near Aweil in Bahr al-Ghazal, and to have taken control of Makway town, between Wau and Gogrial, the report added.
The army spokesman, Gen Muhammad al-Bashir Sulayman, had claimed that the Sudanese army and militia forces had inflicted "huge losses" on the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), in terms of casualties, equipment and fighting supply materials, the Associated Press agency (AP) reported on Sunday.
Sulayman had claimed that the gains had reinforced government control over oil areas, including Adar-Yill, the second-largest oil drilling site in Sudan, and improved supply lines, the report added. 
An SPLM/A spokesman, Samson Kwaje, rejected the government claims, saying that a government "campaign to capture Gogrial", north of Wau, on the Bahr al-Ghazal river, had failed.
The army also claimed, in a statement, to have ousted rebel forces from "limited locations" they had controlled in Upper Nile, thereby facilitating access to oil-extraction locations, according to Sudanese media.
AFP news agency quoted another SPLM/A spokesman, George Garang, as saying that the government reports were mere propaganda, with the government "trying to raise the morale of their forces, who have been badly beaten" in Blue Nile and western Upper Nile.
Garang said the SPLM/A controlled all areas south of Bentiu, near the location of the oilfields in western Upper Nile, and that fighters in the field had said they intended to advance on the government garrison town of Wau. 
Despite the contradictory accounts of the fighting, they do confirm consistent reports of heavy military engagement in both western Bahr al-Ghazal and Upper Nile. Aid agency staff have reported heavy clashes, civilian displacement and increased activity in both areas by government helicopter gunships.
Recent months have seen an upsurge in fighting in Unity State/western Upper Nile between Sudanese government and aligned militia forces, on the one hand, and the SPLM/A, on the other, essentially over control of the area's rich oil resources, according to humanitarian agencies.
The United Nations Children's Fund has, in a humanitarian update to end May, just released, expressed deep concern about the fate of women and children caught up in fighting, which continues to displace people from their homes in western Upper Nile. 
Humanitarian actors working in Sudan estimate that between 150,000 and 300,000 people were displaced in western Upper Nile alone between January and April this year.
At the start of April, some 40 locations in southern Sudan were listed by the government of Sudan as being denied both flight access and general humanitarian access "for security reasons", which effectively cut off humanitarian supply lines into many parts of western Upper Nile, Eastern Equatoria and Bahr al-Ghazal, according to relief officials. 
On 16 May, the Khartoum administration further increased restrictions on humanitarian access by announcing a flight ban for the entire area of Unity State (encompassing western Upper Nile).
Freedom of access to vulnerable populations - an international humanitarian principle – is guaranteed under a beneficiary protocol of Operation Lifeline Sudan, which established principles for the protection and provision of aid to war-affected populations in Sudan.
Despite attempts by government forces to increase their control over the oil-rich areas, often using new military technology paid for with oil revenues, rebel forces had continued to restrict government oil extraction to the area north of Bentiu town, John Prendergast of the International Crisis Group told IRIN last week.
The SPLM/A had consolidated its control over western Upper Nile south of Bentiu, where the bulk of Sudan's oil resources were located, having gained significant military support following a merger with the formerly government-aligned Sudan People's Defence Forces of the Nuer leader, Riek Machar, Prendergast said.
Villages in western Upper Nile under government control, as well as those held by the rebels, have been placed on the government's "denied locations" list, according to Prendergast.
Despite repeated calls for unrestricted access, and agreements by the warring parties to assure this, military operations, insecurity, flight bans and the government's alleged depopulation of oil-rich areas to secure them for production have displaced and/or precluded access to hundreds of thousands of civilians.
Khartoum denies it is targeting civilian populations in oil areas, and has blamed the SPLM/A for escalating military operations and causing the deterioration of humanitarian conditions in Unity/western Upper Nile.
In a separate development in eastern Sudan, the Sudanese armed forces have been celebrating their recapture from rebel forces last week of Qaysan town in Blue Nile State, 600 km southeast of Khartoum. They also claimed to have forced rebel troops from two locations near Qaysan, AP reported.
The SPLM/A claims to have made a "tactical withdrawal from Qaysan, near Sudan's eastern border with Ethiopia.

The US Committee on International Relations at the US House of Representatives is to hold an important oversight hearing on US-Sudan policy on Wednesday 5 June, in the wake of developments in the Sudanese peace process.
Senior US officials, independent experts and academics will make statements during the hearing, called by the chairman of the Committee, Henry J. Hyde, to help define steps towards peace in Sudan after the report to President George W Bush last month of the special US peace envoy to Sudan, John Danforth.
In his report, Danforth recommended that the US continue to serve as an intermediary between the warring parties in Sudan, that its participation must be "collaborative and catalytic", as well as "energetic and effective", and that the enforcement of any agreements concluded was essential for peace.
Danforth said the war between north and south was not winnable by either side in terms of achieving their present objectives, and that both the government of Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) had shown that it was possible to agree on contentious issues and to permit international monitoring of the implementation of their agreements.
A fair allocation of oil resources could be the key to working out broader political issues, Danforth said, adding that while the agreed principle of self-determination (for the south) included the option of secession, a more "feasible" and "preferable" view would simply ensure the right of southerners to live under a government that respected their religion and culture.
The Committee will hear of progress on Danforth's four confidence-building tests for the government of Sudan and the SPLM/A, as key parties to the Sudanese conflict: a ceasefire in the Nuba Mountains region of Southern Kordofan to allow much-needed humanitarian assistance; the creation of zones and times of tranquillity in other areas for the delivery of relief; an end to the targeting of civilians; and, an end to the practices of slavery and forced abduction.
The US has emphasised that the warring parties "must be prepared to comply fully and completely with all agreements reached", and that they be held responsible for progress on these issues. 
Among the questions to be raised in the hearing will be how the US can negotiate effectively or achieve additional leverage with the government of Sudan; the extent to which the warring parties are committed to peace efforts; and, how the US can limit the use of food as weapon of war in Sudan, according to a Committee statement on Monday.
The Committee would also consider how Danforth's proposal for the sharing of Sudan's oil revenues could "help to stop the war and end the destruction of communities living near oil fields", it said.
Participants will also consider why Khartoum has restricted humanitarian relief efforts in southern Sudan; how oil revenues might go towards the delivery of aid in areas outside the UN-led Operation Lifeline Sudan initiative; what strategies could preclude the use of oil revenues from escalating the war; how could awareness of the practice of slavery be spread; and how a secular Sudanese state might ensure freedom of religion for all.
The American officials scheduled to speak at Wednesday's oversight hearing include: Walter Kansteiner, Assistant Secretary at the US State Department's Bureau of African Affairs; Roger P. Winter, Assistant Administrator at the Bureau of Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance within the US Agency for International Development; and Michael Young, Chairman of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.
Other participants will include Francis Deng, a senior academic at the US-based Brookings Institution, Massachusetts, USA; John Prendergast, Co-Director of the International Crisis Group's Africa Programme; Ken Isaac of the Christian NGO Samaritan's Purse; and Eric Reeves, a vocal opponent of the Khartoum government on human rights and humanitarian issues, based at Smith College, Massachusetts.

The Sudanese government on Wednesday agreed to a resumption of aid flows into the highly contested area of western Upper Nile, southern Sudan, but on the condition that relief flights pass through the north, according to humanitarian sources and Sudanese media reports.
Khartoum said aid agencies would be permitted to fly relief to the oil-rich region for the first time in over two months, but on condition that the aid originated in government territory in north Sudan, principally from the town of El Obeid (Al-Ubayyid), Northern Kordofan, humanitarian officials told IRIN.
UN sources said government representatives had demanded that access to western Upper Nile (also known as Wahdah, or Unity State) would only be allowed through government-controlled territory in the north for security reasons. However, no official agreement had been signed, and no written proposals had been put forward by the government negotiators, they added. 
Aid agencies, many operating under the UN-led humanitarian operation Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS) have, for years, flown relief supplies directly into southern Sudan from the town of Lokichoggio, northwestern Kenya.
OLS, the umbrella operation for UN agencies and nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) operating in Sudan, submits a routine request at the start of each month to the government of Sudan and the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) for humanitarian flight access to a number of locations in southern Sudan.
On average, Sudanese government authorities deny OLS access to 25 locations in southern Sudan each month, or about 10 percent of the requests, according to the UN.
At the start of April, however, some 40 locations, were listed as being denied both flight access and general humanitarian access, according to relief officials. This effectively cut off humanitarian supply lines into parts of western Upper Nile, Eastern Equatoria and Bahr al-Ghazal, according to a statement issued by the UN Executive Committee on Humanitarian Affairs (ECHA).
On 16 May, the Khartoum administration further increased restrictions on humanitarian access by announcing a flight ban for the entire area of Unity State (encompassing western Upper Nile), according to a recent statement from nine major aid agencies.
Freedom of access to vulnerable populations - an international humanitarian principle – is guaranteed under a beneficiary protocol of OLS, which established principles for the protection and provision