Sudan trek diary V: Food drop delay

Bill Lorenz of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) is keeping a diary for the BBC News website as he helps thousands of Sudanese trek home to Raga in the south-west, following a deal to end a 21-year war.

He is transporting the most vulnerable on trucks through forests and swamps in a race against time, as the heavy July rains are due.

Monday 18 July

I've just arrived with Hassan, Howiya and their families to set up a new transit camp. It's about 20 km north of Yakap.

People on the trek home to Raga in south-west Sudan

Some 6,000 people have travelled more than 300 km

We are ahead of everyone except for a group of tree cutters who are now busy working on the next stretch of road to a place called Mannei which has better water supplies.

Our new camp - which is nameless until the commissioner, Resiki, gives it one - is still in the forest. But the trees are all hardwood. And there are less of them.

Behind us, are the IDPs. Everyone is eager to make it here as quickly as they can. This is the place where the next food drop will be.

Goat

Food is really an issue. Even for us. Yesterday, we killed a goat we had bought a few days ago for $20.

A lot of meat suddenly to eat with a little pasta. The rest of the meat is now being dried so that we will have something to eat for the next week.

Morale is good. We all know we are on the home stretch

We had bought the goat from Zachariah, a young IDP with entrepreneurial instincts and several goats. We paid him in dollars - the only currency we have - but the people here don't use dollars.

So Zachariah went to one of the truck assistants who'd bought lots of cigarettes in Tambura and used the dollars to buy a stock of them.

He is now selling the cigarettes to others on the journey. He'll certainly have a few dinars in his pocket by the end of this trek.

People are making do with what food they've got. I expect there will be disappointment when they find out the food drop for tomorrow has been postponed.

Delay

The UN's World Food Programme now hopes it will be on Thursday. Monitors to ensure the food is fairly distributed will have to come by helicopter.

Trek in pictures

We are too far away from Tambura for them to travel by road. And they can't come from Deim Zubeir because the UN assessment of the airstrip there has had to be cancelled twice. The assessment is now due for tomorrow. I hope it works this time.

Emmanuel and Louis, one of the IDPs responsible for security, are still in Deim Zubeir. They will wait to meet the UN officials tomorrow before returning here.

They'll bring us some very welcome food rations and some gear oil for a truck that has not been working for a while.

Emmanuel told me 2,000 people had turned out to welcome them on their arrival in Deim Zubeir on Saturday. It's a good omen.

Quiet clinic

Dr Aden, Abbas and Andrew, the other IOM staff, will join me here tonight. Aden is tired and not well.

The temporary clinic he'd set up in Yakap to dress wounds and dispense medicines, had been very busy. But yesterday, the clinic had its first quiet day. A lot of people left the camp to get here in time for the food drop.

Morale is good despite the lack of food. We all know we are on the home stretch. The weather is dry apart from the London-style drizzle at night. We've managed to elude the big rains so far.

The roads are decent and the trucks aren't getting stuck. There are only 60kms left to Deim Zubeir. The light at the end of the tunnel is definitely growing brighter.

Read Bill's previous entry

Below, Bill answers some questions sent in by BBC News website readers.

From the United States, Joseph Onek asks about the timetable for refugees in Ugandan camps to return home. When will they come home?

I don't know. I don't think there has been a date decided. This is something that will be agreed between the Sudanese and Ugandan governments and UNHCR.

Blain in Ethiopia asks if this is the only group that IOM is currently assisting in returning to their villages or are there similar operations going on?

This is the first group of IDPs in southern Sudan that we are helping in this way. However, we will be working with the UN and other agencies to help hundreds of thousands more as they head home.

There will be way stations where people can get essential services and shelter. We will also provide emergency transport to stranded and distressed vulnerable people as they return home. But we are appealing for funds to enable us to do this.

In addition, IOM is providing different types of assistance to IDPs in the western region of Darfur.

Do you have any other questions about the journey or want Bill to explain anything in his diary? Then drop him a line using the form below