As donors meet this week in Norway to consider billions in post-north-south war aid for Sudan, relief agencies and the Roman Catholic Church are appealing for urgent assistance to avert a new humanitarian catastrophe that they say threatens what is supposed to be a peace dividend.

"These people are literally starving in the south," said Ceasar Mazzolari, the Catholic bishop for the diocese of Rumbek, the war-shattered town that under a January peace deal will be the interim capital for an autonomous south.

"The tragedy of Sudan is not known," he told visiting reporters at the Gordhim Catholic mission in central Sudan's Bahr el-Ghazal region. "People are living on the brink of survival."

"The food situation is very bad," said one aid worker who spoke on condition of anonymity. "We are into the severe months of a hunger period."

Relief workers in this barren area say an acute food shortage brought on by prolonged drought has been exacerbated by the influx of returnees and desperate villagers fleeing the crisis in Darfur, to the northwest.

"The rest of Sudan is not suffering the atrocities of Darfur, but is suffering the same human misery, because it has become a place of exodus for Darfur," Mazzorali said.

A fly over the region on Friday revealed vast stretches of arid land covered by dried vegetation and numerous fires. Local residents and aid workers hope for rain in June or July but weather is fickle and nothing is guaranteed.

"They cannot collect leaves (to eat) because there are no leaves in the trees and there is no grass growing," Mazzolari said. "The heat we've had this year has taken an incredible toll among our people."

Visibly malnourished Sudanese who spoke to AFP as they waited at the mission for the distribution of sugar, milk powder, lentils and high-energy biscuits said they lived with constant hunger.

"We are starving," said an an emaciated woman carrying two hungry infants who gave her name as Mabel. "We have no food, no water."

"We have nothing here and yet people are still coming from Khartoum and other regions," said John Mual, a fighter with the ex-rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A).

"The food situation is quite bad (and) the wells will soon run dry," he said. "It is going to get worse and then it will be very, very bad."

"Most who come here are severely malnourished," said a Kenyan nurse at the mission hospital. "Some come and I never see them again... it means they could be dead."

The January peace accord between Khartoum and the SPLM/A ended 21 years of civil war -- Africa's longest -- brought high hopes for development, infrastructure investment and health and education projects to long-neglected southern Sudan.

As a result, millions of the estimated four million people displaced by the conflict are expected to return to their homes, joining the impoverished population of nine to 12 million who are already living in the south.

Coupled with the influx from Darfur, which was not covered by the north-south agreement and where conflict rages on, the potential for disaster without massive food assistance is very real, officials say.

"This peace has to be accompanied by actions and this action has to be sustained with both human and material resources," Mazzorali said, adding that there were major fears of donor fatigue, while many aid workers on the ground also feel overwhelmed by the challenges in southern Sudan.

Of 500 million dollars (385 million euros) initially promised by the international community, only about 25 million has so far been recieved, according to the aid community here.

"What is needed is huge," Mazzorali said. "The international community should commit itself until we are able to walk on our feet. Come and see the reality on the ground. The poor people of the south cannot make it."

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