Posted on 10/12/2001 1:30:40 PM PDT by marxwas a loser
Sharad Sapra, spokesperson at the UN humanitarian office in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, said the team will determine the cause of the disease and provide treatment for the affected persons.
People affected in the two towns have complained of sore eyes, running noses, sore throats and disorientation following a series of air raid in rebel-held areas by the Islamic fundamentalist regime in Khartoum.
''The medical team has gone there fully prepared because we don't know yet what the cause of the symptoms are,'' Sapra told IPS.
Sapra has denied reports that a UN team has been sent to Sudan to establish whether chemical weapons of mass destruction had been used in the region. ''We are a humanitarian arm of the UN, and can only provide humanitarian assistance to the people affected,'' he said.
The main rebel group in the south, the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), last week accused the Sudanese government of using toxic chemical weapons, while on a bombing mission on civilian relief centres in the region.
The SPLA, in a statement made available to IPS, alleged that Russian-built Sudanese Antonov planes dropped up to 16 bombs on Lanya and some six others on Kaya on Jul 23.
''After the two bombings of the town, that day, children and grown up women and men started to vomit blood,'' the statement said.
It said a number of pregnant women in the affected region have suffered miscarriages, while cattle, sheep, goats and birds have been dying in large numbers.
Two UN World Food Programme (WFP) workers were rushed to neighbouring Uganda unconscious. No fatalities have been reported.
Since the civil war broke out in Sudan in 1983, the Islamic government in Khartoum has routinely conducted aerial bombs raid on rebel-controlled areas in the south.
SPLA is fighting for self-determination for the mainly Christian South in a war which has cost close to two million lives since 1983.
According to the rebel Movement, there were no scattered fragments and no huge craters formed in the affected areas, as they are usual with normal bombing.
Instead, there were foul smelling greenish colorations on the ground. ''These reports confirm fears that chemical or biological agents were used in the bombing,'' SPLA spokesperson in Kenya, Samson Kwaje, told IPS.
A Norwegian relief agency, which operates in the region, also has confirmed the bombing. The agency, the Norwegian People's Aid (NPA), said in a statement issued in the capital Oslo on Tuesday that ''a team of scientists have found evidence from soil samples that indicated use of toxic chemicals in the bombing raids''.
SPLA has urged the UN Security Council to condemn the Islamic regime in Khartoum for contravening international law by using weapons of mass destruction.
''We are also requesting foreign governments and all people of goodwill to intervene through whatever means to protect the population that has now been exposed to unknown germs and poisons,'' said Kwaje.
Sudan government, which is a signatory to all international instruments against manufacture and use of weapons of mass destruction, has denied the allegations, saying that it is all part of ''a well orchestrated plan by the West'' to elicit more international pressure against it.
''The Government of Sudan cannot and will not use such weapons of mass destruction, firstly, because it is not in pursuit of a policy of mass killing of its citizens and, secondly, because it is not in possession of an arsenal of these said weapons,'' a statement from the Sudanese embassy in Nairobi said.
Khartoum has also denied allegations that it has been acquiring chemical weapons from its ally, Iraq. ''Iraq now is under sanctions and strict monitoring by the international community. How could we possibly acquire such weapons from them?'' Sudanese ambassador to Kenya, Faroug Ali, told IPS this week.
Ali also claims that a recent reference to ethnic cleansing by three members of the US House of Representatives who recently visited Southern Sudan is part of a plot to prompt the US government to intervene in favour of the rebel Movement.
''The international community does not talk about human rights abuses by SPLA,'' he said. ''They only talk when there are accusations against us.''
This is, however, not the first time that Khartoum has been accused by the US of harbouring terrorists and using weapons of mass destruction.
In August last year, the US bombed a pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum for allegedly producing chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction, just a few days following the bombing of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, the capital of Tanzania, by suspected Islamic terrorists.(END/IPS/ja/mn/99)
The SPLA in southern Sudan are Christians.
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