Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Africa must step up to end the crisis and suffering
THE civil war in Sudan is catastrophic for ordinary, innocent citizens. There seems to be no end to the warfare between the Sudanese national army and the rebel Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which broke out in April last year. It is estimated that over 13 000 civilians have been killed, 25 000 injured and an estimated 8 million people displaced.
Large-scale destruction of infrastructure and agricultural collapse has placed Sudan on the brink of disaster. The nation now faces a devastating famine, which will deepen the humanitarian crisis. The famine is expected to claim the lives of hundreds of thousands of Sudanese in the next few months, in what the United Nations is warning could be the “world’s worst hunger crisis”.
While reports from the UN show that close to half of the Sudanese population urgently require aid, aid is unable to reach desperate civilians. This is largely due to the cold-blooded sabotage by both the army and rebels, who are using the food crisis as a weapon of war. The UN has reported that more than 3 000 humanitarian organisations have ceased working in Sudan due to the intensive fighting. Things are destined to get worse.
Last month, the executive director of the World Feeding Programme (WFP), Cindy McCain, spoke of how the civil war in Sudan is putting millions of lives and the peace and stability of an entire region at stake.
The WFP estimates that 25 million people across Sudan, South Sudan and Chad are trapped “in a spiral of deteriorating food security”. McCain spoke of how 20 years ago, the world rallied to help with the Darfur hunger crisis but how today the world appears to have forgotten the people of Sudan.
Sudan is a real-time tragedy, unfolding before our very eyes, yet it is as if the world is tuned into another frequency, where urgency, action and remedy are not in play.
In December last year, the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, spoke of the pressing need to ensure that the fighting between the Sudanese army and RSF ends.
Blinken also accused the RSF of committing crimes against humanity and of ethnic cleansing. One would think that strong action would be taken. But his words appear to have been lost amid the US Christmas cheer.
The AU’s task team, set up in January, has lacked the necessary potency to quell violence and collateral damage. The Institute of Security Studies has argued that peace efforts have been “largely unco-ordinated, bureaucratic and focused on gun-wielding belligerents”. Calls for ceasefires have come to nought – even that of the UN’s Security Council, which implored for a truce ahead of Ramadaan. Things are moving too slowly. In the end, it may be a matter of too little, too late.
For Sudan, Ramadaan, a time of renewal, has been an interval of intolerable cruelty. US Special Envoy for Sudan, Tom Perriello, said: “It is the time for us to bring together those actors who can help pave that path to peace, to humanitarian protection and access.”
This is the right way forward, but African leaders have failed to step up. After his recent briefing from VicePresident of the Transitional Sovereign Council of the Republic of Sudan, Malik Agar Eyre Nganyoufa and President Cyril Ramaphosa stressed the need for dialogue between the Sudanese army and RSF.
Earlier in the year, RSF’s Mohamed Hamdan met with several African presidents, including Ramaphosa, to discuss how to put an end to the civil war. But these high-profile talk shops have been inadequate and ineffective. Until and unless the issue of Sudan becomes a daily priority for African leaders, the sounds of guns will continue. Louder than ever.
No one has said it better than Professor Kwesi Prah. He writes that the war in the Sudan in general and Darfur in particular “calls into question our collective bona fides … as Africans, we appear to do little to bring these conflicts to a halt. We hardly even talk about them”.
It is in the interests of African countries to end the war in Sudan. As Sudanese flee, neighbouring countries are experiencing serious economic and health risks. The civil unrest in Sudan is restricting access to the vital Suez Canal sea-route and this places trade in jeopardy.
The crisis in Sudan is a crisis for Africa. Until African leaders fully appreciate this, resolving the conflict in Sudan will just be a point on the agenda, rather than the agenda itself. If there was a true pan-Africanist driven and united continent, such atrocities would not be allowed to happen in the first place. Every president in Africa would fight valiantly and devotedly for peace, justice, and prosperity not only in their own country, but for every country in Africa.
For now, it is as if Sudan is a country on another continent, rather than part of the soul, heart, and body of Africa. Such is the disconnection of the current crop of African leaders.
As African leaders and world leaders look on and away, the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces continue to fight. In the end, there may be nothing left of Sudan, and African leaders must bear culpability for the current catastrophe in Sudan and its wasted carcass.