Sudan Revolts

Hundreds of thousands of south Sudanese face one of the worst famines in their history unless they receive crop seed and farm tools in the next few weeks ahead of the rainy season, United Nations and aid agency officials said. A simmering civil war, logistical difficulties in Africa's biggest country, a lack of cooperation by the government in Khartoum and lack of funds for the U.N.-headed Operation Lifeline Sudan have combined to worsen the situation.

Fighting between rival tribes over water and grazing left more than 100 people dead and about 45 villages gutted in western Sudan, a newspaper reported Saturday. The clashes and the casualties in west Darfur state occurred during the past four weeks, Mohamed Salih Sanousi, a Darfur minister, said Friday in the state capital, Genaina. His comments were reported by the Alwan newspaper.

At least 1.9 million civilians in southern Sudan have perished in a 15-year ethnic and religious war that has become the deadliest conflict since World War II, the U.S. Committee for Refugees reported Thursday. "This is greater than the combined toll of civilian deaths in Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda and a number of other places . . . but the international community seems not to be interested," said Roger Winter, director of the privately funded aid agency.

Fierce fighting erupted recently in Sudan's south, leaving scores of people dead and prompting the emergency evacuation of about 25 international aid workers, the largest such evacuation in this nation's long civil war. But the fighting in Upper Nile province was not between rebels and government troops. Instead, it involved two factions that are both on the side of the government. What has prompted this war-within-a-war?

Death touched Manut Nong on the road between Tonj and Mapel. It took his father first, then his mother. Manut stumbled on weakly to finish their quest. Now the teenage boy sits on the red gravel outside the Save the Children camp here, his wasted body a confusion of sharp angles, bent knees and elbows, bowed head in his hand, as tears flow silently down his cheeks. He is naked except for a dirty brown shirt that reaches his thighs. "I am hungry.

Sudanese rebels declared a three-month cease-fire to allow food shipments to reach hundreds of thousands of hungry people. The government agreed to a one-month truce. The Sudan People's Liberation Army said its cease-fire applies Bahr el Ghazal province in the southwest. The rebels have been fighting the government in Khartoum since 1983 for autonomy for the mainly black and non-Muslim south from the Arab and Muslim north. An estimated 1.

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."

The government has agreed to hold an internationally supervised referendum on self-determination in the country's war-torn south. Still, the two sides in the civil war remain deadlocked over the issue of religion, with the government saying Sudan is an Islamic state and the rebels wanting freedom of religion. A communique issued after the third day of talks in Nairobi, Kenya, said negotiations will continue on how to conduct the referendum. More than 1.

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.

The Sudan Airways planes parked in neat rows at Khartoum's sand-swept, palm-fringed airport represent the most practical way to get around this vast, undeveloped country. But a U.N. Security Council vote coming up soon could leave these aircraft grounded for a long time. With the support of the United States, the council is expected to decide in the next few weeks to finally implement a resolution passed in August banning foreign air travel by Sudanese aircraft.