Khartoum gives in over food airlift

06 May 1998

Khartoum gives in over food airlift

KHARTOUM – the capital of Sudan – has given into international pressure by allowing aircraft to drop food and seeds over the southern Sudanese region of Bahr el Ghazal in a bid to stave off famine.

UN officials said the gesture would allow most of the estimated 350,000 at risk to be saved. But it still left the huge task of rebuilding a destroyed farming economy to a level where it could see through the lean months without aid from the outside world.

• Financial Times 06/05/98 page 4