'Operation Lifeline Sudan' launched: 100,000 lives at stake.

Without quick emergency aid it is conservatively estimated that 100,000 people may die in 1989. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar called the effort a "race against time" to avert a "potential disaster of immense proportions", recalling that a quarter of a million persons, mostly children, died in the Sudan in 1988 after the rains interrupted delivery of supplies.

Trains, truck convoys, barges and planes are to be used to transport to the southern region of the country over 124,000 metric tons of supplies through eight "corridors of tranquillity" agreed to by both the Government and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA).

Participants in a high-level international meeting held in Khartoum on 8 and 9 March-including donor Governments, UN agencies, and Sudanese, international and non-governmental organizations-unanimously adopted a Plan of Action calling for 132 million in assistance for some 2,2 million affected persons.

Sudan Prime Minister Sayed Sadeq Al-Mahdi told the meeting he was determined to try to translate the humanitarian agreement into a durable peace so that all Sudanese "can live as brothers again".

The UN Secretary-General named james P. Grant, Executive Director of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), as his Personal Representative to head the $132 million relief effort.

"This is the largest relief operation ever conducted by the UN over such rugged terrain and in such a limited time span", Mr. Grant told correspondents on I April, adding that conditions were further complicated by the civil war situation in the region.

Some 14,600 metric tons of food had already been delivered and the response to funding appeals had been remarkable, he said. Direct contributions to Operation Lifeline Sudan totalled $47 million and another $12 million were under serious negotiations. Nongovernmental organizations active in southern Sudan would get an extra $20 million.