Sudanese airlift set to resume

Press, 30 September 1986, Page 8

Sudanese airlift set to resume

NZPA-Reuter Khartoum Organisers of a delayed relief airlift to famine victims in war-hit south Sudan said they had reached agreement with the Government yesterday to fly food and medical supplies only to Govern-ment-held towns. Two flights will be sent this week to the towns of Malakal and Juba, and not to Wau and Yirol as the organisers had proposed earlier. Juba and Malakal are both held by Government forces, but Yirol has been under the control of rebels for nearly a year and Wau came under siege in August. Yesterday’s announcement by the Dutch Charge d’Affaires in Khartoum, Mr Peter Feith, apparently ended a dispute which had held up the

SUSI million ($2.13 million) airlift, codenamed “Operation Rainbow,” to southern Sudan where aid workers estimate up to two million people are short of food. However, rebels said yesterday that they had not given relief organisations in Khartoum safe passage for flights to Gov-ernment-held towns. A Sudan People’s Liberation Army spokesman, Captain Daniel Kodi, said from the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa: “The last message from the High Command was that air defence units should remain on full alert to shoot down all unauthorised aircraft.” The S.P.L.A. halted a relief airlift to Wau in August when it shot down a civilian airliner, killing all 60 people aboard.