Sudan: Mourning Garang, Unicef Urges All To Fulfil Accords For Children’s Sake
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has urged all sides in Sudan to press on with the peace accords following
the death of Vice-President John Garang de Mabior in a helicopter crash, for the sake of the children of Africa’s
largest country.
“Peace offers enormous benefits, especially for children,” UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman said. “For
the children of Sudan we hope that the peace process continues with optimism.”
UNICEF noted the contribution of Mr. Garang, leader of southern rebels who fought a two-decades-long war with
the Government, to the establishment in 1989 of Operation Lifeline Sudan, a major international relief effort based on a
groundbreaking humanitarian access agreement for aid to war-affected civilians, mainly in southern Sudan.
As one of the three signatories to the agreement along with President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, Mr. Garang helped
set a new precedent for humanitarian access during civil war. Former UNICEF Executive Director James Grant brokered the
OLS agreement under whose provisions millions of people have been served with life-saving relief since April 1989.
“It is a cruel irony that after decades of war, and only weeks after Garang was sworn in as First Vice
President, Sudan should be robbed of one of the architects of its historic peace agreement,” said UNICEF Deputy
Executive Director Rima Salah, who represented UNICEF at the January signing of the peace agreement that formally ended
the war in the south and ushered in Mr. Garang’s presence in the national government.