Sudan

Aid agencies are warning of a possible major conflict in Southern Sudan which could pose a fresh security threat to its neighbours like Kenya if no urgent international intervention is taken to save the current tottering peace deal.

In a report, the 10 agencies say the peace agreement between the Sudanese government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement that ended one of Africa's longest and deadliest wars is on the brink of collapse.

International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) in Sudan's Darfur region says armed men have kidnapped a French aid worker.

The ICRC named the kidnapped man as Gauthier Lefevre and said he was snatched in West Darfur state near the border with Chad. The agency said he was travelling in one of two clearly marked ICRC vehicles.

Lise Grande, coordinator of (United Nations) UN humanitarian efforts in South Sudan, says a vast under-developed region in a grip of renewed tribal violence, is facing a massive food shortage.

Grande states that, "The southern Sudan is faced with a massive food deficit caused by a combination of late rains, high levels of insecurity and displacement, disruptions of trade and high food prices."

Lubna Ahmed al-Hussein, a Sudanese journalist facing 40 lashes for wearing
'indecent' trousers, is returning to court after waiving immunity granted
United Nations (UN) workers so that she can challenge Sudan's harsh laws.

Hussein is to be judged under Article 152 of Sudanese law, which decrees up
to 40 lashes for anyone 'who commits an indecent act which violates public
morality or wears indecent clothing'.

Hussein, in her 30s and whose husband died of kidney failure, could have

Two aid workers kidnapped in Darfur have been located and are in good health. This is according to Sudanese officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Sudanese minister for humanitarian affairs, Abdel Baqi Gilani, says the location of Irish national, Sharon Commins and Ugandan Hilda Kawuki, who were kidnapped from the office of the Irish aid group, GOAL, is now known. The minister added that the kidnapping is not politically motivated.

The Irish government says senior officials have arrived in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum to negotiate the release of an Irish aid worker and her Ugandan colleague kidnapped in Darfur.

Unidentified gunmen and seized Sharon Commins of Dublin and her colleague, Hilda Kuwuki, from the Darfur base of the Irish aid agency GOAL. No group has claimed responsibility for their abduction.

The delegation plans to meet with leaders of Sudan, the United Nations and other aid agency officials, and international diplomats with experience in kidnappings.

A French aid group is leading talks to free two of its foreign workers snatched in Sudan's Darfur region more than a week ago, after kidnappers told the government to stay out.

The workers, one Canadian and the other French, from Aid Medicale International (AMI) were seized from their compound in the south Darfur settlement of Ed el Fursan on 4 April 2009.

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.