Unrestricted access is key to saving lives in Sudan: Annan

After four decades of civil war, the people of the Sudan are in a precarious humanitarian situation that requires unrestricted access by aid workers in order to save lives, Secretary-General Kofi Annan writes in a report released today at United Nations Headquarters in New York.

Humanitarian access, safety and protection of civilians, adequate resources and guaranteed security for humanitarian workers remain the core conditions of the UN's aid programme, known as Operation Lifeline Sudan, or OLS, the Secretary-General says in the annual report to the General Assembly.

"It is paramount to ensure the respect by all signatories of the OLS agreements for unrestricted humanitarian access," Mr. Annan writes, stressing the importance for the parties to fulfil trilateral agreements that define the conditions for the provision of relief aid. "Given the limited humanitarian access and volatile security conditions - especially in southern Sudan - all efforts must be continued to implement these accords fully."

According to the report, Operation Lifeline Sudan, together with its humanitarian partners on the ground, continues to operate under particularly difficult circumstances, including lack of access, growing insecurity and ongoing displacement of populations.

The deterioration of environmental and security conditions make the prospects for malnutrition and vulnerability likely to increase towards the end of 2001, the Secretary-General says, noting that "humanitarian assistance is at best slowing the overall deterioration of the situation." In this context, only a negotiated and lasting peace settlement between the parties, supported by local and regional actors and the international community as a whole, can provide the fundamental solution, the report states.

"Short of a peace settlement and for the sake of the civilian population, the parties to the conflict must work at reinstating humanitarian ceasefires," the Secretary-General writes. "Those that were in effect from July 1998 to July 2000 contributed, however little, to containing armed confrontation."