Sudan seeks international aid for defecting rebels

Sudan has called on international aid agencies to help it look after thousands of reported defectors from a southern rebel militia, the Sudanese news agency Suna said on Monday.

"The Sudanese Council Of Voluntary Agencies has directed an urgent appeal to the international voluntary organizations and the international community to extend support to the returnees from the outlaw movement in the Bahr al-Ghazal states," the agency said.

The director-general of the council told a news conference in Khartoum that the defectors, from the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), needed urgent relief including food, clothes and medicines.

He said that the daily influx of defectors ranged from 120-300, and that the total was expected to reach 10,000 soon.

He predicted that by the end of the year their number could increase to 120,000.

He announced that an air bridge was being set up to Wau in southern Sudan to transport relief to the defectors.

He called on the government to facilitate the flow of relief materials.

BBC Monitoring (http://www.monitor.bbc.co.uk), based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.