The United Nations Security Council must find a way to “unlock” the situation in Sudan’s South Kordofan and Blue Nile States so that humanitarian agencies can gain unfettered access to administer polio vaccinations to as many as 165,000 children in the two states, John Ging, Director of Operations from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said at a press conference at UN headquarters in New York yesterday. Despite the outbreak of polio in the region, Sudanese government and rebel forces there have not responded positively to the urgency of the situation, he said.
Instead, they have created bureaucratic obstacles. "Unfortunately we have been filibustered with process and discussions and disputes which have amounted to no access whatsoever. Zero," Mr. Ging added. “If we get the green light, we, on the United Nations side, are ready and it will only take four days to vaccinate the children.”
The vaccination campaign, aimed at covering the children at risk and ensuring that Sudan be polio free, has been hindered by the impasse between the government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), which controls areas of South Kordofan and Blue Nile. Rebels in control of access to the affected territories have continued to delay UN entry with a demand for yet another meeting, following what Ging described as previous “meetings after meetings.” Neither the Sudanese government nor the UN believe an additional meeting is necessary. However, “if that's what it takes to get the vaccination campaign to happen then we'll have a further meeting," Ging said. Meanwhile, violence in the region continues, with bombardments resulting in killings, injuries and displacements.
Nothing has changed since more than a year ago, when the Security Council passed a resolution calling for unfettered access for humanitarian agencies and their partners. “We in the international community have failed the innocent people of Blue Nile and South Kordofan,” John Ging said.
The Security Council needs to take more effective action, he argued, without indicating what steps he specifically would recommend. He declined to say whether he thought that expanding the mandate of the African Union/UN Hybrid operation from Darfur to include protecting civilians and contributing to security for humanitarian assistance in Sudan’s South Kordofan and Blue Nile States might be a step in the right direction.
The polio threat is not limited to Sudan. The strain of polio that has begun infecting Sudanese children is believed to have originated in Pakistan. It is spreading to the Middle East, including Syria. The Global Polio Eradication Initiative, in its report for the week of November 6, 2013, wrote: “Following confirmation of polio in Syria, health ministers of the Eastern Mediterranean declared the circulation of polio virus in the Region an ‘emergency’ for all Member States at its Regional Committee meeting in Oman last week. It called on Pakistan to take necessary steps to ensure all children were accessed and vaccinated as a matter of utmost emergency to prevent further international spread and requested Syria and adjoining countries to coordinate intensified mass vaccination campaigns using the most appropriate tactics and vaccines to interrupt this new outbreak within six months.”
As in Sudan, the conflict in Syria is hampering efforts of the United Nations and other relief groups to conduct a mass vaccination campaign. And in Pakistan, the source of the polio virus, the Taliban has imposed a ban on vaccinations in the most vulnerable areas because they believe that the vaccinations are a cover for Western spying and a plot to sterilize Muslims. The jihadist terrorists have killed members of health teams trying to reach children to vaccinate them as well as police who have tried to protect the teams.
Elias Durry, head of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) in Pakistan, said the following in a telephone interview with Reuters last month: "The risk is that as long as the virus is still circulating, and as long as we have no means of reaching these children and immunizing them to interrupt virus transmission, it could jeopardize everything that has been done so far - not only in Pakistan, but also in the region and around the globe."
Pakistan’s Taliban fighters, who have joined the jihad against the Assad regime in Syria, are not only an incubator of terrorism. By blocking polio vaccinations in Pakistan, they are contributing to the spread of polio in Pakistan and beyond to Syria, Sudan and possibly around the globe. Even if the United Nations is ultimately successful in getting polio vaccinations to some of the most vulnerable people in Sudan, Syria and elsewhere, it will not be able to help eradicate the source of the polio strain in Pakistan as long as the jihadist terrorists remain free to kill and intimidate health workers there. In this light, think of U.S. drone attacks against the Pakistani Taliban and other terrorists operating in Pakistan as an extension of the polio eradication campaign.
