THE United States is to send emergency food aid to Sudan to help both the government-controlled north of the country as well as rebel-held south despite Washington’s tense relations with Khartoum, US officials said on Sunday. Andrew Niatsos, the head of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) said the 40_000 ton of food for Sudan is aimed at meeting “emergency needs in both North and South”. Niatsos is accompanying US Secretary of State Colin Powell on his visit to Uganda. “There is a desperate situation in the north, and we don’t use food aid as a political weapon,” Powell said. “It is strictly because of the need in the north.” The Arab Islamic government in Khartoum has been fighting Christian and Animist rebels in the south for 18 years. Sudanese authorities recently said they would welcome US initiatives to end the country’s civil war. -AFP
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