NGOs

The United Nations (UN) and several members of its security council have urged Sudan to reverse its decision to expel 13 foreign aid groups; the country says it will never back down.

United States Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, told the 15-nation Security Council that, “We urge the international community to press the government of Sudan to reverse its expulsion edict and to ensure it does nothing to worsen an already grave situation."

A land rights group, the Right to Agrarian Reform for Food Sovereignty Campaign, has rejected Land Affairs Minister Lulu Xingwana's "use it or lose it" hard line on land redistribution.

In a press statement, the organisation demands an immediate halt to the process of taking land away from historically disadvantaged farmers.

According to a United Nations’ (UN) top humanitarian official, the UN and the Sudanese government do not have the capacity to fill all the gaps left by NGOs asked to stop working in Sudan.

"We do not, as the UN system, the NGOs do not ... and the [Sudanese] government does not have the capacity to replace all the activities that have been going on, certainly not on any short- or medium-term basis," says John Holmes.

Aid workers have warned that the decision by Sudan to expel or close down 16 relief organisations may trigger a severe humanitarian crisis in the war-ravaged western Darfur region.

In a press statement, the United Nations warns that halting NGOs’ operations would leave 1.1 million people without food, 1.5 million without healthcare and at least one million without drinking water. It describes the groups as "integral" to the world's biggest humanitarian operation.

The national director of the Media Institute of Southern Africa in Malawi (NAMISA), Innocent Chitosi, is joining politics.

“People in my constituency sent some village heads to speak to me so that I take part contesting in the general elections in May so that I represent them in Parliament,”
says Chitosi.