Activists raise alert over war in Sudan

International aid agencies have raised the red flag over possible war outbreak in Sudan and called on the international community to act fast.

Major conflict could return to southern Sudan unless there is urgent international action to save the peace agreement that ended one of Africa’s longest and deadliest wars, the 10 aid agencies warned this week ahead of Saturday’s fifth anniversary of Sudan’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement.

But Sudan’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement a report “from some foreign organisations...that the north and the south are doomed to go back to war, was not correct and was not backed by facts on the ground”.

“The situation in southern Sudan is very far from what has been depicted...It is not all doom and gloom,” Anne Itto, a senior member of the south’s dominant Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) told reporters.

Itto, speaking in the southern capital Juba, said the campaigners had failed to take into account significant improvements and development in the five years since the accord.

The group had described the international lack of interest in post-conflict Sudan as unacceptable, warning that a second round of war pitting the Khartoum and semi-autonomous South Sudan could gravely jeopardise regional stability.

In a new report “Rescuing the Peace in Southern Sudan” — released ahead of the fifth anniversary of the signing of the peace agreement between the Sudanese government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement — the agencies said a lethal cocktail of rising violence, chronic poverty and political tensions has left the peace deal on the brink of collapse.

“It is not yet too late to avert disaster, but the next 12 months are a crossroads for Africa’s largest country. Last year saw a surge in violence in southern Sudan.

This could escalate even further and become one of the biggest emergencies in Africa in 2010,” said co-author of the report Maya Mailer, policy advisor for Oxfam.

With increasing fears about the next 12 months in Sudan and the possibility of the peace breaking down, Sudan365, a new global campaign was launched on Saturday, with major public events held in 15 countries around the world, including Kenya.

Thousands of activists gathered in a global coordinated effort, calling on world leaders to take urgent steps to prevent a return to severe and widespread conflict in Sudan.

With many highly contentious issues still to be resolved amidst increasing inter-ethnic violence in the South and continued attacks on civilians in Darfur, there is a real risk of a return to conflict that could destabilise the entire region and place civilians in grave danger.

“The African Union has declared 2010 the Year of Peace and Security in Africa. No people in Africa deserve peace or security more than the people of Sudan,” said Chidi Anselm Odinkalu, co-chair of the Darfur Consortium.

But the media coverage of the fragile peace deal came under criticism for fuelling mistrust between the partners.

“We have a responsibility to get it right. There are no hard evidence of arms supply by Khartoum to militia groups in the south,” said Richard Poole, director of International Rescue Committee (IRC) humanitarian aid programmes across Southern Sudan.

His caution stems from a recent BBC report that claimed that north Sudan was ostensibly arming militias in the south to fuel clashes and subsequently scuttle a referendum vote that is key to determining the independence or otherwise of the south.

IRC says there is only one year left for Sudanese parties to salvage a 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed in Naivasha, Kenya, that ended more than 20 years of war and requires a pivotal referendum next January on unity or secession for Southern Sudan.

According to the NGOs, in 2009 alone, some 2,500 people were killed and 350,000 fled their homes, a human toll greater than occurred last year in Darfur.

Additional reporting by Reuters