Sudan Stranded Amid the Gunfire

By Pico Iyer

In recent months, more than 40,000 victims of famine have tramped across battle zones to reach the southern Sudanese town of Wau and its life-giving supplies of food. Last week not a single ounce of relief grain was delivered to the starving region. A transport plane filled with 315 tons of corn stood idle in neighboring Uganda, and 200 food-laden vehicles were halted at the border. With food supplies all but exhausted, some famished Sudanese were reduced to eating leaves off the trees. And when guerrilla fighting broke out in the crumbling provincial capital, many of the half-starving refugees were forced to take to the road.

Once again emergency aid had become a hostage to politics and war. Wau's always depleted cupboard began emptying fast two weeks ago when rebels using a Soviet SA-7 missile shot down a twin-engine Sudan Airways passenger plane as it took off from the southern town of Malakal for Khartoum. The attack, which killed all 63 persons aboard, caused international relief agencies to suspend food shipments to southern Sudan, where some 2 million people face death by starvation. The shooting took place just one day after the Sudanese People's Liberation Army had warned that "any plane, military or civilian, flying to Juba, Wau, Malakal or any other town in War Zone No. 1 will be doing so at their own risk."

Both the drawn-out tragedy on the ground and the attack in the air reflected an increasing sense of anarchy in southern Sudan, which the rebels have virtually severed from the rest of the country. Since 1983 the insurgents have violently resisted efforts of the Muslim-dominated government in Khartoum to impose its customs on the Christian and pagan south. Led by John Garang, a Christian from the Dinka tribe, the rebels have especially chafed against the "September laws" of former President Gaafar Nimeiri. Imposed in September 1983, the Islamic laws have been applied with unusual severity to all Sudanese, whatever their religion. In 1984 alone, hundreds of people, including foreigners, were given 80 lashes if liquor was detected on their breath. More than 200 others, convicted of theft, had their hands cut off as punishment.

When Nimeiri was ousted in a bloodless coup last year by his Defense Minister, Abdul Rahman Suwar al Dahab, it seemed peace might be restored. But before long, the fighting resumed. In May the first national election since 1968 brought to power Sadiq el Mahdi, leader of the moderate Muslim Umma Party. Making peace his top priority, the Oxford-educated Sadiq lost no time in arranging a meeting in Ethiopia with Garang, who holds a doctorate in agricultural economics from Iowa State. Yet the two leaders could not concur on terms for a cease-fire. Last week Sadiq agreed to repeal the September laws within ten days. But how he would unify a country with 160 ethnic groups speaking 100 different languages still remained unclear.

Meanwhile, Garang's force of roughly 12,000 men threatened to tighten its siege of Sudan's four large southern towns. In addition, the insurgents braced themselves for an expected assault from government forces, supported, the rebels claimed, by 13,000 Libyan troops gathered on the border. Though Sadiq denies any ties to Tripoli, there seems little doubt that he is drifting politically leftward. In early August the new Prime Minister visited Libya, which had been an enemy of the pro-American Nimeiri, and later he traveled to Moscow. Said Information Minister Mohammed Tewfiq Ahmed: "We cannot afford to have bad relations with any of the superpowers. In the past the Soviets built some hospitals and factories. If they can help with agriculture, education and health facilities, we don't want to be a burden on the Americans alone."

In the aftermath of the plane attack, Sadiq pledged that the government would "try our level best to make sure that all means -- river, rail and air transport -- are made available so that aid reaches the needy." Yet as long as both sides continued their military operations, relief efforts seemed certain to remain suspended. In the meantime, roving gangs of bandits, armed tribesmen and Ugandan army deserters swarm through the rebel-held area.

Amid all the chaos, the principal victims, as ever, have been civilians. Relief officials estimated that the 44 tons of food that reached Wau just before further shipments were cut off would soon run out. In the absence of fresh supplies, some weakened children were already said to have developed brain damage from malnutrition. At Narus, on the Kenyan border, ten children a day were dying of measles and malnutrition. "A lot of the children were as + bad as anything I've ever seen," said Andrew Warren, a World Concern employee who recently returned from the camp, "even worse than in Ethiopia."

At week's end, as hunger deepened, relief shipments remained tantalizingly close but still immobilized along the country's borders. "It's like a house that's caught fire," said Staffan de Mistura, director of operations for the United Nations World Food Program. "We see the fire. We have well-trained firemen, and we have water. We hear the screams. But we cannot get in."

With reporting by David S. Jackson/Khartoum