Press Release, 30th September 2008

GOAL is responding to an emergency in southeast Sudan where flooding and an influx of returned refugees are straining local resources.

As recent media reports have indicated, malnutrition and sickness have been claiming the lives of the vulnerable in several villages in Blue Nile State.

GOAL’s country director has reported that 3,000 returned refugees have arrived in the area in recent months. Food rations intended to last until September ran out in July and crops cultivated with seeds and tools distributed to promote sustainable agriculture have been lost to flooding.

Furthermore, the roads into affected areas are becoming increasingly impassable, complicated by the fact that they have not been surveyed for mines.

GOAL has been working in South Sudan since 1985. In 2007, GOAL reached over 200,000 people through its Primary Health Care programme and more than 76,000 people through Expanded Programme of Immunisation and reproductive health services.

For further information contact;

Frank McManus, GOAL Country Director for South Sudan, on 00 88 216 21 15 51 84

OR

John O’Shea, GOAL CEO, on 01 280 9779