Khartoum has denied a report that relief planes of the United Nations or the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) came under fire in southern Sudan, the SUNA news agency said Thursday.
A report Wednesday in the Sudanese newspaper Al-Sahafi quoted the Nairobi office of Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS) as saying two OLS planes came under fire but managed to escape.
Sudan's state-run agency quoted an unnamed source in the government's Humanitarian Aid Commission (HAC) as saying "no plane of the UN or the International Committee of the Red Cross has been hit by government planes in Bahr el-Ghazal."
The source added that the government showed "concern with the safety of those organizations," saying it followed the airlifted relief operations and informed relief organizations of safe airports in south Sudan.
He said the UN and ICRC planes operating within the OLS were given permission to airlift relief from Lokochikio, in north Kenya, Khartoum and Obeid to south Sudan during August.
No other organization has requested such a permission, the source said -- KHARTOUM (AFP)
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