SUDAN: Rebels say food crisis looming

NAIROBI, 11 August (IRIN) - An estimated three million people in southern Sudan are facing severe food shortages because government bombings have forced relief agencies to suspend operations, the Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Association (SRRA) said at a press conference on Thursday.

Elijah Majok, spokesman for the humanitarian wing of the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army, told journalists in Nairobi that the bombing campaign over the last month "has complicated an already complicated situation". He said the SRRA estimates about three million people will suffer the effects of drought and war, particularly in Bahr elGhazal province - the scene of a famine in 1998.

Both the rebels and the Sudan government have traded accusations since fighting in southern Sudan intensified last month. The government launched a bombing campaign after the SPLA seized Gogrial in Bahr el-Ghazal. Diplomatic sources told IRIN that the SPLA, for its part, had destroyed a key bridge that carried the railway line from northern Sudan into Wau, Bahr el-Ghazal, effectively besieging the regional capital.