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Sudanese authorities are holding up to 100,000 tonnes of sorghum meant for
Darfur, alleging that it is genetically modified, the U.N. food agency
said - by Silvia Aloisi .
The sorghum, which comes from the United States, is being held up at Port
Sudan, a World Food Program spokeswoman in Rome said, adding that laboratory
tests had shown it was not genetically modified.

"We had it tested by a French laboratory along with Canadian split peas
which the Sudanese are also objecting to, and neither food consignment is
GM. In any case, there is no GM sorghum on the market, it doesn't exist,"
said the WFP's Caroline Hurford.

"It's a huge amount of food to be held up and our sub-offices in Darfur must
be getting quite worried. We hope that we can find a solution quickly and
have it released so it can reach the people who need it," she said.

Sources in the aid community said Sudan was blocking the shipment because it
wanted the WFP to buy local food products.

"We do intend to buy some amount of food from Sudan as they had a bumper
harvest but there are limits to how much we can purchase because of funding.
Most food aid is given to us in kind, as is the case with the U.S. sorghum,"
Hurford said.

Harry Edwards, a spokesman for the U.S. Agency for International Development
in Washington, which manages most U.S. food aid donations, said only that
the crop provided to the WFP contained no genetically altered material.

The sources said Khartoum also may be using the food aid as a political
weapon as international pressure intensifies on the government to stop the
violence in Darfur.

The United Nations estimates around 200,000 people have been killed in the
vast western region and 2.5 million displaced since 2003, when rebel groups
took up arms against the government, accusing it of neglect.

Human rights groups say the Sudanese government armed Arab militias to help
quell the rebellion. Khartoum denies the charge.

The United States, which has called the violence "genocide," has accused the
Sudanese government of a campaign of intimidation against aid workers in
Darfur, and threatened Khartoum with sanctions and other punitive measures.

A decision is expected within weeks.

The WFP's new head, Josette Sheeran, began a visit to Sudan on Wednesday,
her first field trip as executive director of the agency. Sheeran is a
former under-secretary for economic affairs at the U.S. State Department.
(Additional reporting by Sue Pleming and Missy Ryan in Washington)

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