The Unforgivable Silence on Sudan

[elleng]

By Linda Thomas-Greenfield

Ms. Thomas-Greenfield is the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Silence. Last September, when I visited a makeshift hospital in Adré, Chad, where young Sudanese refugees were being treated for acute malnutrition, that was all I heard: an eerie silence.

I had tried to prepare myself for the wails of children who were sick and emaciated, but these patients were too weak to even cry. That day, I saw a 6-month-old baby who was the size of a newborn and a child whose ankles were swollen, and whose body was blistered, from severe malnourishment.

It was equal parts newly horrific and tragically familiar.

Twenty years earlier I had visited the same town and met with Sudanese refugees who fled violence in Darfur, where the Janjaweed, with backing from Omar al-Bashir’s brutal authoritarian regime, carried out a genocidal campaign of mass killing, rape and pillage.

Today, civil war has once again turned Sudan into a living hell. But even after aid groups designated the country’s humanitarian crisis to be among the world’s worst, little attention or help has gone to the Sudanese people.'>>>

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/18/opinion/sudan-famine-humanitarian-aid.html

[Behind the Aegis]

1. As UN urges Sudan truce, Russia and China cite Gaza

The United Nations Security Council on Friday called for an immediate cessation of hostilities in Sudan, prompting China to remind it not to forget about the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and Russia to accuse the United States of double standards.

Russia abstained, while the remaining 14 council members voted in favor of the British-drafted resolution that called for an immediate cessation of hostilities during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which begins early next week.

War erupted in Sudan on April 15, 2023, between the Sudanese army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The U.N. says nearly 25 million people - half Sudan's population - need aid, some 8 million have fled their homes and hunger is rising. Washington says the warring parties have committed war crimes.

Between 10,000 and 15,000 people were killed in one city alone in Sudan's West Darfur region last year in ethnic violence by the RSF and allied Arab militia, according to a U.N. sanctions monitors report seen by Reuters in January.

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[Behind the Aegis]

2. Sudan: 5 million at risk of starvation due to war, UN says

The conflict between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces militia has decimated the country's ability to feed itself and prevented humanitarian aid from reaching those who need it most.Some 5 million people in Sudan could face "catastrophic food insecurity" in the coming months as fighting continues between rival generals, according to UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths.

The conflict between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces militia has had a severe impact on agricultural production, disrupted trade, caused price increases and impeded the flow of humanitarian aid, he said.

"Without urgent humanitarian assistance and access to basic commodities ... almost 5 million people could slip into catastrophic food insecurity in some parts of the country in the coming months," Griffiths wrote in a note to the UN Security Council on Friday.

UN calls for 'unimpeded' humanitarian access

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