Covenant News

U.N. Calls for Suspension of Aid Flights in Sudan

WHEATON, IL (August 15, 2000) - The United Nations has called for a suspension of aid flights in southern Sudan in response to the Sudanese government's increased bombing attacks near relief agencies' facilities and aircraft during the past week. A total of 15 bombs were dropped in six waves, according to news reports from the region.

No Covenant churches in the area have been directly affected, Covenant News Service has learned, though at least one project of the Northwest Conference has been delayed due to the fighting.

"The bombing of innocent civilians and relief work is a callous and inhumane act," said Dr. Clive Calver, president of World Relief. The Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC) is a significant contributor/partner of that agency. "The Khartoum government must stand indicted of recklessly playing with the lives of tens of thousands of people who, without food and medical supplies, face imminent death," Calver said.

World Relief and other aid agencies have appealed to United States Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to intervene, pointing out that some 33 relief agencies have been attacked. Government planes have bombed the area around one World Relief location three times since June 14.

For World Relief, the international assistance arm of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), the bombing has delayed the opening of a health clinic desperately needed in the area, Calver noted. It is hoped that stopping the attacks will allow the organization to fly in needed construction materials to finish the project.

The Northwest Conference has Nuer-language Bibles held in Nairobi awaiting resumption of flights into the Bentiu area, according to Jerry Rice, the conference's director of administration. Bentiu is the most interior of the communities and is closest to the government territory and the pipeline, so usually encounters harder times, Rice observed. "It is such a tragedy to read of the bombings," Rice said. He noted that there are no Covenant churches in the area of Bahr El Ghazal, which is on the western side of South Sudan and the scene of much of the fighting. "Fighting has been worse in many of these areas since early this year and many have fled," Rice said.

The latest bombings violate the current UN-brokered "humanitarian cease fire" in northern Bahr El Ghazal. "We urge our churches to seek the intervention of our government to bring this crisis to an end," Calver said. "Together we must seek, under God, to pray and act before it's too late."

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