He said
the incident took place "despite assurances from the government of
Sudan that bombings of locations used by UN/OLS
would not reoccur."
News Article by AFP posted on August 08, 2000 at 17:23:28: EST (-5 GMT)
UN suspends relief flights after bombings in Sudan
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 8 (AFP) - The United Nations announced
Tuesday it
had suspended relief flights in southern Sudan, where
humanitarian agencies
accused the government of stepping up bombing
raids on civilian targets.
In a statement through his spokesman, UN Secretary General Kofi
Annan said
he was "deeply concerned over the security of
humanitarian personnel and
facilities belonging to Operation
Lifeline Sudan (OLS)."
He said he was "particularly alarmed" at an incident on Monday,
when 18
bombs were dropped near UN facilities at Mapel, 60
kilometres (35 miles)
southwest of Wau, in the state of Bahr el
Ghazal.
"A United Nations aircraft, that had been cleared by the
government of
Sudan to undertake its flight, was on the airstrip at
Mapel at the time of
the bombing," spokesman Manoel De Almeida e
Silva said.
He said
the incident took place
"despite assurances from the government of
Sudan
that bombings of locations used by UN/OLS
would not reoccur."
He recalled that the assurances were given after
other bombing incidents
in late July that threatened
the safety of relief workers and their planes.
"In light of these developments, all OLS relief
flights have been
temporarily suspended, pending a
security assessment," he said.
UN officials said OLS flights needed 72-hour
clearance, and "the
authorities must have known
the plane was on the runway."
OLS is a framework that allows UN agencies and
non-governmental
organisations (NGOs) to assist
millions of Sudanese throughout the country.
It was set up 11 years ago with the approval
of the government and of the
rebel Sudan People's
Liberation Movement (SPLM).
In his statement, Annan called on both the government and the
SPLM to to
reinforce the security of humanitarian workers and
civilins.
He also urged them to restore a humanitarian ceasefire that
broke down on
July 15.
In Nairobi on Tuesday, a consortium of NGOs working under the
umbrella of
OLS said there were "at least 33 separate bombing
incidents" in southern
Sudan in July.
They said government warplanes targeted agency compounds and
planes during
some of the raids.
In a statement, the NGOs denied government accusations that
relief flights
had been used to smuggle arms to rebels.
"Claims that OLS agencies have airlifted and supplied arms to
separatist
rebels in the south have not been substantiated and are
refuted in the
strongest possible terms," it said.
Also in Nairobi, the Sudan Catholic Information Office (SCIO)
said at
least five people were killed and several wounded on Monday
when government
planes twice bombed Tonj, near Mapel.
Antonov planes dropped 12 bombs in the morning and four in the
afternoon,
the SCIO said in a statement.
Soon after, they dropped a total of 18 bombs on Mapel, it said.
Mapel is a base for humanitarian activities in the Bahr
el-Ghazal region,
and serves as a screening centre for civilians
displaced from other areas.
There is a school with about 1,000
pupils in Mapel.
Aid agencies working in Mapel include Lutheran World Federation,a
Save the
Children Fund, International Rescue Committee and
MSF-Belgium, as well as a
number of indigenous non-governmental
organisations.
"Khartoum, in total defiance of mounting international censure,
has since
the beginning of the year, attacked civilians with an
unprecedented vigour,"
SCIO charged.