“U.N. aid agencies are under attack from doctors working with refugees who have been displaced by fighting in Sudan, with claims that they are not doing enough to get medical supplies through to children in desperate need,” the Guardian’s “The Observer” reports. According to the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism, some doctors working in the area say that UNICEF-provided supplies of vaccines against childhood diseases “dried up nearly a year ago in areas of conflict around the Nuba mountains,” the newspaper writes.

“According to UNICEF, its workers have managed to carry out only one vaccination campaign in the area since June last year,” and the agency “claims it managed to transfer 1,500 polio doses to the area but admits those supplies have long since run out,” the Guardian notes. “Now there are fears that outbreaks of infectious diseases, including measles, could prove devastating to people sheltering from the violence, especially young children,” the newspaper writes, adding that UNICEF and other aid agencies need to get permission from Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir in order to operate in the conflict zone (McClenaghan/McVeigh, 5/19).