World Bank boosts agriculture in Sudan's Nuba region

Khartoum, Sudan
Feb 19, 2003 (PANA)

The World Bank has earmarked a US$1.5 million grant to boost agriculture in central Sudan's war-torn Nuba Mountains region, State Minister of Agriculture El Fatih Mohammed Saeed said in Khartoum Wednesday.

Saeed said farmers would be able to acquire agricultural inputs with the grant.

He said the ministry had also been informed that the World Bank would send one of its senior officials, Shawgi Barghosi, to assist in agricultural development and resettlement of citizens displaced by the war in the Nuba Mountains region.

The region traditionally belonged to post-colonial Northern Sudan, but during the early 1990s, scores of its young men teamed up with the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army, fighting government troops from the South.

The youths complained their region had been "economically and politically marginalised" by the Khartoum government.

But the Khartoum government and the rebels signed a truce last year and are due to continue peace talks in Kenya next month.