Requiem for the Sudan: war, drought, and disaster relief on the Nile

After a decade of uneasy peace between the Islamic Northern Sudanese and the non-Muslim Southern Sudanese, the traditional antagonism once again erupted into violent conflict in 1983. In the ensuing civil war Arab militias and government troops repressed and devastated much of the southern populace. This man-made disaster was made worse by a series of natural disasters in the form of several periods of drought. Both types of disaster resulted in massive famine, social upheaval, death and displacement, and migration of Southerners to the big cities of the North (Khartoum and Omdurman). In the context of the recent political history of Sudan the present book gives a detailed account of the attempts of international and humanitarian organizations to provide food and medical relief. Focus of the study is Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS), the disaster relief programme inaugurated in April 1989 under the auspices of the United Nations and funded in large part by the United States. Particular attention is given to the management and results of the various relief programmes, agencies and organizations and their frustration by corruption and outright hostility, especially after the establishment of an Islamic Republic in 1989. In 1988 the first author of the present study was appointed logistics director of USAID-Sudan (the US Agency for International Development Office in Sudan).