Yida refugee camp on the northern border of South Sudan has seen an increase in the number of incoming daily flights, rising from between 3 and 5 to as many as 15 to 20 per day. The dramatic scale-up in the humanitarian airlift aims to bring food and basic commodities into the camp such as nutrition packets and soap, as stock has run low and also as a precaution for a potentially large influx of refugees arriving to the camp at the end of the rainy season.

In the fall season it is almost impossible to deliver these goods over land; the road southward via Bentiu is impassable at present. Due to the circumstances, aid organizations have arranged for some 12 air drops per day. The operation includes airdrops as well as landings to bring in medicines and staff for humanitarian aid organizations. The airdrops result in minor losses to some of the incoming goods.

It was also noted that the airdrops lack variety. No school materials are included in the incoming materials, for instance, because the UN Refugee Agency has a policy to prevent organizations from working in the field of education in the camp. This policy is linked to UNHCR standards on how close a refugee camp should be to an international border.

Yida Camp is now home to about 63,000 refugees from the Nuba Mountains region of Sudan, according to UNHCR figures.

Photo by Radio Tamazuj: UN aircraft at the Yida airstrip, 17 October 2012