Intervention Under the Guise of Famine
Sudan Events – Agencies
This is the final drum that is beating in the world now, calling for the rescue of the hungry in Sudan—not Gaza! The truth is, the drums of hunger and famine began beating months ago, but now they have reached a fever pitch, especially after the release of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report last month. The noise escalated even further after a committee of food security experts released a report last Thursday, declaring a famine in the Zamzam camp in El Fasher, Darfur.
According to Mr. Adam Regal, the official spokesperson for the refugee camps, there are 171 camps in Darfur. Among these camps, only one (according to their claim) is experiencing famine, and it is a camp under the control of Abdul Wahid Mohamed Nour, who has held these poor people captive for decades for political gain. The rest of the camps are reportedly 100% unaffected by famine. But because of the famine in this one camp, the drums began beating.
Omer Ismail, chairman of the Enough Project, wrote an extensive article in The Washington Post, and Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, gave a lengthy statement last week about the famine in Sudan. Even Mr. Tom Periello, the U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan, issued a tweet in the same direction, with the “progressive” media playing along with multiple hashtags announcing a famine in Sudan. Imagine all this uproar over just one camp, according to their own report!
The biased newspapers, news agencies, and agenda-driven websites quickly picked up the news without verifying it, proclaiming in bold headlines: “Famine Declared in Sudan!” Can you see the manipulation and deceit? They are using hunger and manipulating people’s lives and tragedies to support political agendas.
The goal of this campaign is to pressure the government to open border crossings and stop the war to save the militias. Then, under this pressure, the government is supposed to rush to Geneva, bowing to the American agenda that seeks to find an escape route for the militias from their predicament, and score points for the Democrats in the upcoming elections. This is the reason behind all the commotion about the famine.
Before we discuss the definition of famine and hunger according to United Nations definitions and food experts’ criteria, we would like to pose some questions to those beating the drums of famine for political purposes. First, is there hunger in the sense of food shortage? My answer is, yes, there is definitely a food shortage, and therefore a higher rate of hunger. But has it reached the fifth phase, the stage where hunger levels trigger a global famine declaration?
According to the United Nations’ own reports, this has not happened yet. There is starvation, but not famine, according to the IPC report released last month, which was co-authored by more than ten agencies concerned with food issues worldwide. The same report states that only 13 regions in Sudan are experiencing food shortages out of more than 50 regions, the majority of which are not suffering from food shortages.
Let’s assume there really is a famine. What are its causes, and what is the primary factor behind it? Is it due to natural causes or caused by a particular actor? And who is this actor? We must identify the causes to eliminate them because relief is not a cure for famine; its root cause must be eradicated.
Assuming the famine exists, what has the world done to save the hungry from perishing? According to the famine advocates, people are dying in Darfur. This implies that the world must rush to deliver food through all available and open crossings, whether north, south, west, or elsewhere. So why insist on one crossing point—Adre, the crossing point controlled by the rebel militias? Meanwhile, the government has agreed to allow food into Darfur through the Tina crossing after aid has been inspected and monitored. But the United Nations organizations, which continue to wail for open crossings, refuse to accept this.
Why insist on Adre as the sole crossing point for all of Darfur? There are ulterior motives behind these fake humanitarian slogans. Dr. Amjad Farid saved me the trouble of answering the first question in an article he wrote for Al Majalla magazine (The Famine in Sudan: A Man-Made Tragedy). In the July issue, Dr. Amjad states, “Justifying this catastrophe and humanitarian suffering solely as a result of the April 15, 2023 war is an incomplete analysis. Even wars in our modern era have their own laws and rules that govern the conduct of the warring parties to limit the impact of fighting on civilians. Since the outbreak of its war with the Sudanese army, the Rapid Support Forces militia has followed a strategy of starvation siege aimed at pressuring civilians to subdue them or force them to join. The militia initially besieged areas densely populated with hundreds of thousands of people, such as Tuti Island and neighborhoods like Bant, Abbasiya, Fatehab, and Engineers in Khartoum State, during their control of Omdurman City. They prevented citizens from leaving and blocked food and supplies, resulting in deaths due to hunger and thirst in those areas. The militia imposed a similar siege on the areas it controlled in Al Jazirah State, using food and supplies as a weapon to force young people to join their ranks. Investigative reports documented testimonies from at least 750 people, including 65 children under the age of 18, who were forcibly recruited into the Rapid Support Forces militia between January and March 2024. Just a few days ago, on July 14, 2024, the militia attacked a convoy of local traders from the villages of Fangoqa Al Gharbia and Umm Hijlija heading to get supplies from the weekly market in Umm Sumeima, located 75 kilometers north of Umm Rawaba City in North Kordofan. The militia fired indiscriminately at the convoy, killing 23 people instantly, injuring dozens, and disrupting the supply convoy. A consistent pattern has emerged as the war continues: when the Rapid Support Forces take control of a civilian area, they systematically confiscate food and prevent it from reaching civilians.”
Those who called for war now demand its cessation, and those who cry out about famine are the very ones who caused it. Those who call for aid are the same ones looting United Nations and international organization warehouses, imposing sieges on cities to starve and subdue them, and refusing to allow aid to reach those in need except through the one entry point they control—Adre. How ironic that those looting people’s food from their homes and warehouses are now calling on the world to rush to their aid!
To achieve their goals, they issue fake reports filled with absurd numbers. For example, take the Clingendael Institute report, which claimed that 2.5 million people are expected to die from hunger, with an anticipated 15% of the population in Darfur and Kordofan likely to perish from hunger and disease by September.
Imagine 2.5 million Sudanese expected to die by September! How many have died so far, and how many are expected to die by the end of this month to reach 2.5 million by September? Such fake reports are used to deceive the world into fulfilling their political agendas and stealing millions of dollars from donors, of which less than 10% reaches the truly needy.
Given that millions are reportedly dying and half of Sudan’s population is threatened with death within a year, what has the international community done to save the Sudanese from imminent death? Linda Thomas-Greenfield says, “We have led the humanitarian response by providing over $1.6 billion in aid since September 2023.” Thomas-Greenfield is referring to the promises made by countries that attended the Paris conference, organized by France, Germany, and the European Union last year to address the Sudanese crisis. But what did the world do after that conference, which generated so much noise at the time? Dr. Amjad Farid says, “We find that the funding available this year from the international community for Sudan’s humanitarian relief plan by the end of July 2024 covers only about a third of the needs and budget estimated by UN agencies to address the largest contemporary humanitarian disaster (the available funding amounts to $850 million, while the required budget is $2.7 billion). So the funding provided by the international community to Sudanese people who are allegedly dying by the millions is only 30% of what was promised.”
Do you see how disgusting this hypocrisy is? Last month, 13 organizations working in relief efforts on the Chadian border issued a statement saying they received only 12% of their total needs and called on the UN and donors to urgently fulfill their pledges!
All the noise they are making in the global media about famine deaths in Sudan, in their slogans and conferences, does not translate into generous donations to save the hungry because the goal is not to prevent the alleged famine but to serve political agendas aimed at a ceasefire without implementing the Jeddah agreements and to open the country to poisoned aid to supply the rebels through a single crossing—Adre. If the goal were otherwise, they would have issued condemnations against the militia that is looting the limited aid from their warehouses and convoys.
Just yesterday, Doctors Without Borders issued a statement saying, “We were forced to reduce the number of children who can receive treatment because the Rapid Support Forces prevented aid trucks from entering El Fasher.” So, the militias are committing war crimes, preventing and looting aid, and the world is silent; not a single condemnation has been issued by those organizations. Yet they tell you that the government is blocking aid! If the government were looting aid, the world would have exploded in outrage! And they still want us to believe in a so-called free, democratic world that cares about human rights and is eager to aid us, the same world that supports rebellious militias that kill, loot, and destroy the people and the country.
Because aid has become a form of investment and a political tool, it is never truly intended to save the hungry. According to one report from a reliable and credible source, in 2010, 74% of the total international aid received by Africa was reinvested in donor countries to generate profit. How? The international organizations purchase food and humanitarian aid from their companies at above-market prices and then transport it on their ships and planes, employing their experts who consume huge salaries, and store it in their warehouses. By the time the aid is delivered, nearly 90% of the funds return to the donor countries in various forms—so who’s helping whom here?
All this noise, conferences, promises, and reports are just a means of manipulating the humanitarian cause for political gain. If it weren’t so, they would not insist on delivering aid solely through the crossing they control, Adre, and they would not ignore all the other open and safe crossings that could save the hungry from famine.
As long as the situation remains this way, the government should not bow to the pressure to open all crossings. If the world truly cares about the hungry, it should condemn the militias that loot food convoys, attack aid trucks, and forcibly recruit children into their ranks to use them in battle, even if it means their death. If we hear condemnations and witness the opening of other crossings, we will believe their noble intentions; otherwise, this is just another example of fake humanitarianism used as a tool for political gain.
