President George W. Bush on Monday said he had directed emergency food stockpiles be shipped to Sudan to help ease a humanitarian crisis and called on the US Congress to approve $225 million in food aid.
Bush said he had directed five US ships be loaded with food and proceed to Port Sudan and had ordered the emergency purchase of another 40,000 metric tons of food for rapid shipment. "These actions will allow the world food program to restore full food rations to the people of Darfur this summer," he said.
He said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will address the UN Security Council on Tuesday to request a resolution to accelerate deployment of UN peacekeepers in Darfur.
The government of Sudan and the main Darfur rebel faction signed a deal on Friday to end three years of fighting that has killed tens of thousands of people and forced 2 million to flee their homes.
That agreement raised hopes Khartoum might now consider a UN deployment because Sudan had said in the past it would only do so after a peace deal with Darfur rebels.
Bush said he was proposing $225 million in food aid for Sudan as part of an emergency spending bill for the Iraq war and hurricane Katrina that is snarled on Capitol Hill as senators try to add spending items to it that Bush considers unnecessary. "I hope Congress will act swiftly on this true emergency," Bush said.