The Famine in Sudan
by Jess McHugh
"To understand this famine [in Sudan], you've got to get
a handle on the war."
For the past fifteen years, famines have occurred within the
Sudan. And it is no coincidence that fifteen years is also the length
of time that the Civil War has been raging in the Sudan between the
North and the South. In fact, unlike the typical conception of
famines being caused by nature alone, the famines in the Sudan are to
a larger extent man-made as well. In fact, according to a recent
Human Rights Watch Report, "It is fair to conclude that, but for
these human rights abuses, there would have been no famine in
Sudan...." The famines are attempts by parties on both sides of the
war to not only make the stakes that much higher while causing
massive destruction, pain and death, but to allow each side in the
war to demonize the opposition in the eyes of the international
community as they blame one another for the results of the famine. In
reality, however, both sides in the Sudanese Civil War have used food
as a political weapon. And both sides are responsible for the famines
and all the hardship that they have brought with them.
On April 3, 1998, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mustafa Osman
Ismail accused the SPLA rebels of using food as a weapon in the Civil
War. He denied that the government ever kept food from reaching
populations in war areas, and stated, "We, on the government side,
have approved that food should reach anybody in any part of the
country. Food is a right of everybody and it must reach them."
"The Secretary- General has expressed concern over the fact that
both sides in the civil strife have used the denial of humanitarian
assistance as an instrument of war. 'They have restricted access to
areas where people are suffering; they have banned humanitarian
aircraft, including essential cargo planes, and they have attacked
refugee camps, truck convoys and relief workers.'"
General Statistics:
• The famine in Sudan is defined as a "complex emergency."
This definition means that the famine has been caused by more than
one factor, in this instance man and nature. A "simple emergency"
would be the result of one or the other.
• In early 1998, the World Food Program estimated that
350,000 people were at risk of starvation. By July of 1998 that
estimation rose to 2.6 million people at risk, out of a total of 27
million people..
• UNICEF estimates that over 50% of the children in the
Sudan are malnourished.
• According to the United Nations, three million people -
nearly 10 percent of the country's population - will need some level
of food assistance to make it through the coming year.
• The province of Bahr el Ghazal in the southwestern part of
Sudan has been hit the hardest with the famine. This region has the
highest concentration of people as well. There, 770,000 people are
threatened with death by starvation and 250,000 people have already
died from it.
• A therapeutic feeding center in Ajiep, located in Bahr el
Ghazal, estimates that 55% of the children in Ajiep are malnourished,
but the feeding center can only hold 170 children at a time. In order
to choose which children it helps, the feeding center which is run by
Doctors Without Borders, can only see children who weigh 60% less
than what they should weigh for their height.
The Government's's role:
• The government has been involved in several scorched earth
campaigns across the Southern part of Sudan. The results of these
campaigns not only ruins the current year's crops, but devastates the
land for future growth as well.
• The government has encouraged its militia's raiding of
towns where the steel cattle and grain from the citizens.
• The government banned all flights into the rebel-held Bahr
El Ghazal region by the United Nation's Operation Lifeline Sudan
(OLS) from February 4th to March 31st. Resulting in the unnecessary
deaths of thousands of Sudanese.
• The government has never allowed the United Nations into
the Nuba Mountains which are under control of the rebels. The
government appears intent on starving the 400,000 civilians within
the area who it suspects are SPLA supporters.
• On May 6, 1998 the government announced that it was
donating food to Niger in order to assist the state with the food
crisis it was going through because of a drought. General al Bashir
was quoted as saying, "The Sudanese people would not tie their hands,
while their brothers in religion (Islam) face a hunger
situation....Islam teaches us the principles of 'Takuful' (social
interdependence), which we in Sudan adhere to."
The SPLA's role:
• The SPLA has been known to set up a system of taxation on
relief food, effectively preventing the food reaching the population
in need.
• The SPLA often distributes food relief to civilians
according to their own criteria. Those without local kin, widows, and
families with only one child suffered the most.
• The SPLA also is active in raiding towns for grains and
cattle. Their destruction of homes in areas prevents civilians from
returning, forcing them to move to other areas which in turn puts a
strain on the food resources in the new area.
Agencies, and their web site links, involved in food relief
programs in Sudan:
• UNICEF
• World Food Program
• Doctors Without Borders
• Save the Children Fund
• OXFAM.
Essay
#1