Scandalous Sudan crisis

IT IS the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.

At least 12.5 million have been displaced. Hundreds of civilians and aid workers have been massacred; dozens of children killed. It is the only country currently experiencing famine.

The World Food Programme says 24.6 million people face acute hunger. There has been ethnic cleansing. Women have been gang raped; girls placed in sexual slavery. Detainees have been executed, sometimes in full view of social media cameras.

Yet is the world talking about Sudan?

On April 15, the civil conflict there entered its third year. By all accounts, the battle between the Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese Armed Forces continues to rampage.

The war that broke out in Khartoum, the country’s once vibrant capital, has now spread to the north, in places like El Fasher and Zamzam camp, where millions who have already been displaced are being directly targeted. Atrocity after atrocity continues to unfold. The scale of suffering is hard to fathom. The world must reckon with this situation.

Just as it has paid attention to the Russia-Ukraine war, the Israel-Gaza war and the catastrophe within Haiti, leaders and diplomats cannot, in good conscience, turn their backs on what is occurring in Africa’s third-largest country.

The diplomatic response so far has been dismal. In June, the UN Security Council formally condemned the siege of El Fasher. (Guyana voted in favour; Russia abstained.) But the council did not follow that resolution with concrete action.

A conference held in London on April 15, at the behest of the UK, ended with a failure to deliver a final communique. There will be no set diplomatic principles for a future contact group, as had been hoped for. Worse has been the complete absence of measures to end the flow of arms.

The source of the conflict is a power struggle between rival factions of the Sudanese military government.

Weapons continue to slip into the country from China, Iran, Russia, Serbia and others. This includes firearms, attack drones and munitions. An arms embargo limited to Darfur has not been effective.

The war is happening in Sudan, but the hands of several countries are, thus, seemingly bloodied.

Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, too, are among those jumping up within this concatenation with reports of ties on both sides: the military leaders on the one hand, the paramilitary leaders on the other.

In March, the Sudanese Armed Forces retook Khartoum, but the city is a shell of its former self. Donald Trump’s USAid cuts have not helped.

Urgently needed now are basic interventions to fill the gap: more food kitchens and more sanitary supplies.

But also needed now is more pressure from citizens to get governments to act.