Violence brings South Sudan to the brink of disaster

Violence brings South Sudan to the brink of disaster

February 22, 2017
Violence brings South Sudan to the brink of disaster
Violence brings South Sudan to the brink of disaster


Famine has returned to Africa. The focus of concern is South Sudan where 100,000 people already face starvation and some five million of the 12 million population are rapidly running out of food. The warnings from international Non-Government Organizations are once again being broadcast and appeals for funding are going out.

There are two important factors behind this looming tragedy. The first is the utter failure of South Sudan to function as a state since it broke away from Sudan in 2011. The rivalry between two main tribes and their leaders President Salva Kiir and his former deputy Riek Machar, whom the president accused in 2013 of attempting a coup, has resulted in widespread violence with at least 300,000 people killed. Slaughter on this scale has wrecked an already struggling economy. It is clear that in the circumstances, Africa’s 54th country, whose birth was greeted with such enthusiasm in the capital Juba just six years ago, never really had a chance.

In the end, tribal rivalries and the purblind strategies of individual leaders meant that the foundations for any sort of prosperity in the young country could never be laid. The only people who have done well in this mayhem have been the arms merchants and the gravediggers.

In 1998, when the Sudan People’s Liberation Army was relatively united in its fight with the government in Khartoum, there was another disastrous famine. The cause of both this and the present disaster was not simply the destruction and insecurity caused by the conflict. Drought, the scourge of East Africa, had ruined crops and meant that farmers had no product to sell and no seeds to plant for the new harvest.

There was a time when international appeals for help in the face of drought attracted huge charitable donations from around the world, which supplemented the aid given by governments and international organizations including those of the United Nations.

But over time, donor fatigue crept in. Appeals by Non-Government Organizations brought in less money. This reaction has been the more pronounced where the disasters for which funds are requested are to a large extent man-made. And there can be no doubting that the horrors facing the people of South Sudan are to a very large extent caused by the country’s political leadership. Had there ever been a reliable and prudent government in Juba, the country could have prepared against the effects of drought and had in place a program to assist aid agencies to bring in and distribute food and medicines. No such structure exists. Indeed, there are major challenges for NGOs to get aid to where it is needed with the danger that armed gangs will intercept supplies for their own use or simply to stop rivals receiving them.

None of this, however, should be allowed to undermine the concern that everyone enjoying the abundance and security of civilized countries should feel for this unfolding disaster in South Sudan. The beleaguered people of this struggling new country ultimately deserve better and wiser leaders, but at this very moment, they need all the outside help that they can get merely to survive. Thus nobody should turn away and keep their pocketbooks closed. Meanwhile, somebody needs to bang together the heads of the country’s leadership and ask them if their bitter rivalries are really worth the devastation and famine they have caused.


February 22, 2017
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