Sudan Foreign Aid

Relief agencies trying to avert a catastrophic famine in the southern part of the African nation say efforts to get food through have been hampered by an upsurge in fighting and a sharp deterioration in supply roads in neighboring Kenya. Humanitarian aid officials have estimated that 350,000 people are at risk over the next three to four months in Bahr el Ghazal province, the most affected area.

Idris Nazil, a newspaper editor and head of a publishing firm here, is well-to-do by Sudanese standards. But when he and family members recently came down with fevers, even he couldn't afford the medicine his doctor prescribed. "I said to my wife that I should go to my company and get a loan for this," Nazil recalled scornfully. "Everything is so expensive--even for the director of a company like me."