SPLM-N demands discussions on how to conduct vaccination campaign for children
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June 6, 2013 (KHARTOUM) – The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement
–North (SPLM-N) said ready for a polio vaccination and vitamin A
distribution campaign that two UN agencies intend to carry out in its
controlled areas, and demanded to negotiate how to carry out this
operation and provided to exclude Sudanese from this operation.
JPEG - 33.8 kb
A woman holds her child in a shelter in Bram village in the Nuba
Mountains, South Kordofan, on April 28, 2012. (Reuters)
When approached by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World
Health Organization (WHO) last April, Khartoum government and the
SPLM-N disagreed over how to organise this campaign as the former said
it should be carried out from inside the Sudanese territory while the
latter demanded to conduct it from Ethiopia and Kenya.
SPLM-N secretary general Yasir Arman on Thursday announced that he had
discussed the with Valerie Amos, UN Under-Secretary-General for
Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, this campaign
which targets about 150,000 children under 5 years in Blue Nile and
South Kordofan.
Arman renewed SPLM-N’s commitment for the vaccination and stressed
that because of the war the two parties have to declare humanitarian
cessation of hostilities for one week or more according to the needs
of the operation.
Without any mention to the previous position of his group to carry the
campaign from Kenya and Ethiopia, Arman further added in a statement
he extended to Sudan Tribune they are willing to discuss " the
modalities of bringing the logistics of the campaign from a location
that is agreed to by the two parties".
However, he stressed their rejection to allow members of the Sudanese
government Humanitarian Action Commission (HAC) to have any access to
the SPLM-N held areas.
"It is an open secret that HAC, the humanitarian relief wing of the
Sudan government is an agency controlled by Sudan security, and it
cannot possibly have anything to do with the areas under the control
of the SPLM-N", Arman said.
One the other hand, he proposed that the SPLM-N humanitarian team can
extend the necessary support to "resolve all technical issues in order
for the vaccination campaign to start".
Amos last May was in Sudan during three days where she visited a camp
of displaced people near El-Fasher in North Darfur, as in Khartoum she
met Sudanese officials including president Omer Al-Bashir to discuss
the humanitarian situation in the rebel held areas in South Kordofan
and blue Nile states.
The armed conflict between the two parties since June 2011, affected
some one million persons who were forced to move from the conflict
areas to other Sudanese regions, Ethiopia and South Sudan.
Khartoum accuses the SPLM-N of holding civilians hostage in its areas
and rejects to allow humanitarian access to the rebel areas saying the
food brought by international aid workers would benefit to the SPLM-N
fighters.
UN agencies, African Union and Arab League persuaded the warring
parties to signed a humanitarian deal in August 2012 to reach the
needy civilians in the rebel controlled areas but they disagreed on
how to implement it. The SPLM-N underlined it had also signed another
agreement with the tripartite panel in February 2012 but Khartoum
rejected it.
During a first round of direct talks held in Ethiopia last April, the
Sudanese government delegation refused to discuss a cessation of
hostilities agreement allowing to reach affected population saying
that a political solution will pave the way for the humanitarian
assistance.
Arman in his statement reiterated the SPLM-N proposal for a
humanitarian cessation of hostilities stressing "The civilian
populations should not be punished by the lack of the common political
agenda between the two parties".
(ST)
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