SUDAN: Putting the First Tarred Roads “Since Creation” in Place

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

JOHANNESBURG, Apr 24 2006 (IPS) - For about two decades, aid agencies have been airlifting relief supplies to south Sudan because of the poor condition of the roads in this region – devastated by more than two decades of civil war.

“It’s catastrophic. The south was extremely underdeveloped before the war. The war destroyed everything,” Peter Smerdon of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) told IPS in a telephone interview from the Kenyan capital – Nairobi.

“Communities are cut off. It’s difficult to reach some of those communities. Clearing the mines and the roads will, therefore, help people to move around the country,” he said.

This is likely to take some time, however, due to shortage of funding. According to the WFP, its programme of emergency road repair and mine clearance along 3,000 kilometres of key transport routes in Sudan, requiring 183 million dollars, faces a shortfall of some 70 million dollars.

“Since late 2003, WFP has rebuilt roughly 1,400 kilometres of roads, repaired bridges and culverts, and removed and destroyed some 200,000 pieces of unexploded ordinance,” said a statement from the agency issued Apr. 12.

“If sufficient contributions are made, WFP will eventually open up the entire region and it should be possible to drive from the southern borders of Sudan to (the capital) Khartoum and on to Egypt for the first time in a generation,” the statement added.

In spite of obstacles, progress is already visible with the road repair initiative.

“For example, Yei to Juba (about 160 kilometres) used to take two days to drive. Now you can drive in three-and-a-half hours,” noted Smerdon.

Sudanese officials say they are also committed to opening the roads.

“No meaningful development can take place without a good road network in southern Sudan. The policy of the government is to construct modern roads that will connect various parts of southern Sudan internally, and link them as well to the outside world,” Salva Kiir, first vice president of Sudan and head of government in the south, told the region’s parliament Apr. 10.

Southern Sudan was given autonomy in terms of the peace agreement that ended the civil war last year – and will also vote on whether to secede in 2011. The lengthy conflict, sparked by religious and ethnic differences, was waged largely between the Islamic government in Khartoum, and the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) in the south.

Kiir said that south Sudan was planning to build a railway line to connect Juba, the capital of the region, to Kenya’s Indian Ocean port of Mombasa, either through Uganda or western Kenya.

“We are also discussing with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) the linking of Juba-Yei-Lasu with Kisangani (the main city in eastern DRC) in order to gain access to the Atlantic and open up its (the DRC’s) markets to southern Sudan,” Kiir added.

Rebecca Nyandeng, widow of SPLM/A founder John Garang, was appointed south Sudan’s minister of transport and roads when Kiir took over from Garang.

The SPLM/A figurehead died in a helicopter crash when returning from neighbouring Uganda in July last year – only three weeks after having taken up his position in Sudan’s new dispensation. Acknowledging the state of south Sudan’s roads, Garang was wont to say that there had been no tarred roads in the region “since creation”.

Nyandeng’s biggest headache will be clearing landmines, a deadly legacy of various north-south conflicts. However, fewer mines were laid in the first war, which erupted in 1955 and ended in 1972, than during the conflict which ended last year.

Between 500,000 and two million landmines have been laid in Sudan, according to MineTech International, a British-based mine clearance firm which operates in Sudan. The firm says this makes the East African country one of the ten most heavily-mined nations in the world, causing the activities of international aid agencies to be severely constrained.

The United Nations Mine Action Office, established in 2003 to coordinate all mine-related programmes in Sudan, estimates that 155 communities and 4,270 square kilometres of land are at risk in South Sudan as a result of these weapons.

The mines were left by both rebel and government forces. While former SPLM/A rebels laid anti-tank mines to prevent Sudanese government troops from reaching territories under their control, government forces planted mines around garrison towns to keep the rebels away.

Mines pose a risk to both humans and animals.

Nyandeng’s job is also made difficult by the activities of the notorious Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a Ugandan rebel group which forcibly recruits children to serve as fighters – and mutilates its victims. The LRA has operated from southern Sudan.

In November 2005, the LRA killed two de-miners – an Iraqi and a Sudanese colleague – forcing the Swiss Foundation for Mine Action to suspend operations in south Sudan temporarily.

There are fears that LRA activities could affect the return of over three million displaced persons in the north and 500,000 refugees in neighbouring Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia and the DRC who wish to go home.

* The story moved 22:02 GMT Apr. 23, 2006 contained an error in paragraph 13. Please note that Salva Kiir’s comment should have indicated that the linking of Juba-Yei-Lasu with Kisangani was being discussed to give south Sudan access to the Atlantic – not the DRC access to the Atlantic.