The risk of a devastating famine is increasing exponentially across Sudan. According to a recent report from the United Nations hunger monitor, a “marked and rapid deterioration in the food security situation” over the past six months has led the northeastern nation War-torn African on the precipice of a catastrophe beyond imagination.
More than eight million people in 14 of Sudan’s 18 states now face food shortages that can result in acute malnutrition and death. Around 750,000 of them are at risk of immediate starvation. According to an analysis by Save the Children, around “16.4 million children, or three in four in the country, now face ‘crisis’, ’emergency’ or ‘catastrophe’ levels of hunger – above 8. 3 million registered last December” .
However, despite the imminent threat of an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe, the international community, and especially the Western world, shows little interest in Sudan and its protracted conflict. Where are the headlines? Where are the protests? Where are the campaigns, interventions and demands for accountability?
Sudan’s years-long conflict has internally displaced nearly 10 million people, killed tens of thousands and left millions more hungry, traumatized and with little hope for the future. In Sudan, every day is a tragedy, but the world seems not to pay attention.
While undoubtedly damaging and frustrating, the Western-led international community’s apparent disinterest in the Sudan crisis is not surprising. Time and again, we have seen the West and its leaders briefly “worry” about a crisis in Africa or the Middle East, only to forget about it altogether when another crisis or development – perceived as having more consequences, relevant to national interests or merely interesting – it appears in other places and attracts the attention of the media, politicians and the masses.
In fact, Sudan is not the only forgotten crisis of our times.
Syria, for example, is still going through a terrible crisis, with millions of displaced people with no hope of returning home, living in terribly difficult conditions in Syria and abroad, but the world has moved beyond the war in Syria and no longer pays much attention to the tragedies that still affect the Syrian people today.
The people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) also continue to be killed, maimed and displaced amid ongoing fighting between rebels and the military, but their suffering appears to be just a footnote on the Western agenda.
The ongoing atrocities in Gaza have received significant attention from the international community since the start of the latest round of conflict for several reasons. But now, with the United States, France and the United Kingdom focusing on their own elections and domestic politics, the war and humanitarian crisis in Gaza are also gradually being reduced to secondary concerns.
Crises in the Global South have always faced an uphill battle for global attention. However, when the international community looks away, abandons or “forgets” a crisis or conflict in Sudan, Syria, Congo or elsewhere, that crisis does not disappear. It gets worse. In fact, the lack of international scrutiny means that humanitarian needs and human rights violations can escalate with impunity.
It is not too late to correct course. The international community can still do the right thing and expand its attention span beyond one conflict, argument, issue at a time and recognize that the world’s many protracted conflicts and humanitarian crises did not disappear because we stopped paying attention to them.
Sudan, especially, urgently needs global attention and action.
It was in early March that the World Food Program issued its shocking warning that the war in Sudan threatens to trigger “the world’s biggest hunger crisis”. Four months later, the situation is significantly worse and the “biggest hunger crisis” is almost here.
We and our partners working in Sudan are seeing families with no other options than to eat dirt and leaves in an attempt to combat looming famine. Parents are traveling across the country looking for work to support their children. No one is sure where the next meal will come from, if at all.
Sudan will soon enter its main planting season. But with most of the population displaced and those left behind too hungry to work, the likelihood of a successful harvest is painfully low.
The world must recognize what is happening in Sudan and take urgent action to prevent further devastation of a people who have already suffered for too long.
If we do not act now, the consequences – “the greatest hunger crisis of our time” – will be on our conscience. We can’t say we didn’t know – just that we didn’t care.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.
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