The Current Situation in Sudan as of August 26

First, the somewhat good news: our school in Karakoulle has remained intact through more than three years of war; one hundred girls and boys are learning to read, write, and do arithmetic there. Classes are also being held in the school building in Saraf Oumra, which we funded. Thanks to our help, the first two grades of the Al Ikhlas secondary school have a permanent roof over their heads there. This is by no means a given; the war in Sudan is preventing classes from being held at most schools in the country. Since the RSF militias (see below) captured the city of El Fasher last October after a year-and-a-half-long siege, the entire Darfur region has been under their control. The RSF carried out a bloodbath among the civilian population, and the international community has simply shrugged it off. This is intolerable; it is reminiscent of the reactions to the genocides in Srebrenica or Rwanda. All the UN Human Rights Council has managed to do so far is pass a resolution condemning the events. Even the countries that support the RSF—above all the United Arab Emirates—remain unchallenged.

The people of Sudan are being left to fend for themselves.

According to the United Nations, this is the world’s largest humanitarian disaster. Twelve million people are displaced, and 26 million are starving or at risk of starvation. It is estimated that 150,000 people have lost their lives in the civil war so far.

The background

Sudan is a country in north-east Africa, five times the size of Germany and home to almost 50 million people. The country is characterized by aridity and is largely located in the Sahara or on its southern edge, the Sahel region.

Sudan was a British colony until 1956; since gaining independence, the country has been plagued by political unrest. A civil war lasting nearly 50 years between the predominantly Christian south and the Muslim north ended in 2011 with the independence of South Sudan. However, uprisings have repeatedly broken out in other regions of the country as well, the most well-known and far-reaching of which occurred in Darfur in 2003.

The children need our support more than ever. What we can still do to help is send money so that teachers can be paid and the children can buy books, notebooks, and pens. In this way, we can bring a little normalcy to the horror of war. At least that’s something.