Khartoum, Sudan, Mar 28, 2011 / 23:29 pm
Updated March 29, 2011 at 11:40 a.m. MST. Adds report in paragraphs 11 and 12 that CRS has been allowed to resume operations.
Catholic Relief Services has announced that it will be forced to close its food program in Sudan’s West Darfur state at the end of March because the government cannot guarantee its security.
“Hundreds of thousands of people have been cut off from aid,” the relief agency’s president Ken Hackett said on March 26. “We call upon the Sudanese government to immediately restore the flow of food aid to the people of West Darfur by either allowing us to resume our service, or urgently finding an alternative.”
The closure could deprive 400,000 people of emergency food supplies.