Fuel tax blocks aid to hunger-ravaged South Sudan, UN says
Women and children wait to be registered prior to a food distribution carried out by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in Thonyor, Leer state, South Sudan on February 26, 2017. PHOTO | REUTERS
South Sudanese authorities are holding up United Nations fuel tankers over a tax dispute, jeopardising the delivery of millions of dollars of aid during a humanitarian crisis, the UN mission there said.
The trucks were held up at depots and the Ugandan border on Wednesday despite assurances from the minister of Humanitarian Affairs a day earlier that a new tax on trucks carrying fuel and other supplies did not apply to UN humanitarian operations, a spokesperson for the mission said.
