Sudan visa curbs fuel risk that ‘millions will die,’ aid groups warn

Aid organizations preparing for famine in war-ravaged Sudan are warning that “millions will die” unless governments act on delays and restrictions in obtaining desperately needed visas for their staff. More than 100 applications are stalled — about 30 of them for more than three months — and the visas issued last for only two months. They are also single entry, preventing workers from returning to Sudan if they leave during that period. In contrast, staff working for the World Food Programme and other United Nations organizations receive multientry visas for at least six months, often lasting for up to one year, INGOs in Sudan said. Mercy Corps warned of “the cost in lost lives” when it gave evidence to a U.K. Parliamentary inquiry, while WFP urged the U.K. — the penholder for Sudan at the U.N. — to step in and exert diplomatic pressure on Sudan’s government. “We have to do a better job as the humanitarian actors, but more importantly the international community, to ensure that the UN agencies and their partner INGOs are treated in the same way when it comes to visas and travel,” Khalid Osman, WFP Sudan deputy country director, told members of Parliament. Anthony Neal, the coordinator of the INGO Forum for Sudan, representing 52 aid groups working in the country, told Devex they have been pleading for multientry visas for six months without success. “It has a chilling effect on the response and means we are not moving with the urgency needed to get the right people on the ground at the right time — which causes significant delays in delivering assistance,” Neal explained. “We don’t have time for this type of delay, for this bureaucracy. Without substantial change in the posture of the Sudan government, millions of people will die when that could be prevented. “We have stopped talking about whether we can prevent famine — we are past that point. Instead, we are talking about being ready to deal with the famine that we will have.” Neal said aid organizations on the ground fear as many as 2 million people could die within six to 12 months, adding: “More could be done by the diplomatic community to address this visa issue.” The London inquiry heard UNICEF offer evidence that 14 million children in Sudan — almost 60% of the child population — need urgent humanitarian assistance, that 4.6 million children have fled their homes, and that half of 6,000 health care centers are not functioning, including 70% of hospitals in conflict areas. “We are dealing with negotiating access for four to eight trucks at a time — painstaking negotiations — when we should be talking about 6,000 trucks to reach the level of need in these areas,” said Mary Louise Eagleton, UNICEF’s deputy representative at the Sudan country office. Sibongani Kayola, Mercy Corps country director for Sudan, said “no real justification” was given for visa delays, explaining: “You can imagine the cost in lost lives.” Permission to travel across Darfur, a “conflict hotspot,” had been denied. Speaking from Nairobi, where he was evacuated when Sudan’s civil war broke out a year ago, Neal said visa obstruction made it difficult to hire the best-quality staff — who did not know if they would be working in Sudan, from Nairobi, or from home. “We don’t get the A-team, when the crisis demands the international community’s best and brightest. It is an interference with our response,” he told Devex. “If a doctor in a hospital on this temporary document wants to leave for two weeks for some respite, or because of a family emergency, there’s no guarantee they will get back in. We’ve also noticed that the greatest difficulty obtaining visas is for staff who want to go to Darfur.” NGOs were left increasingly dependent on a “traumatized workforce” within Sudan. “They have done an incredible job, but they are suffering the effects of war and may be displaced themselves, or have family in conflict areas,” Neal added. Even when applications have been approved in Port Sudan, staff members have been unable to pick up promised visas at the Sudanese embassy in Nairobi, sometimes being told that “quotas have been exceeded.” Neal called for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to apply pressure on Khartoum, and for governments to push for action at the U.N. and the African Union Peace and Security Council.