Many of our readers will find the pictures of famine in southern Sudan which we have published deeply distressing. Some may feel that this is a visual invasion of privacy which should not be allowed. Others may wonder whether such appeals to our consciences are not just a short-term palliative: is there not a better way to tackle human disaster – made by humans – on such a catastrophic scale?
These are difficult questions involving both judgement and principle, but in the meantime we are absolutely sure of the need to jolt both the public and governments into greater awareness. The war-made famine in southern Sudan is one of the world’s greatest catastrophes: nearly two million have already died from fighting and consequent famine in the past decade and a half.
The United Nations World Food Programme says that 1,2-million more people are at risk of death from hunger in the next few months. In Ajiep, where these photographs were taken, people are living on the leaves of trees. Food supply by UN planes does not meet half the demand. At least one child dies in the feeding centre a day. It is as much hell on earth as a battlefield, a concentration camp, or the scene of ethnic genocide.
Southern Sudan has always been a harsh, dry place to live in and the climate has worsened in recent years. It is expensive and difficult to send in emergency supplies and even more so to begin to rebuild a devastatated agricultural infrastructure. But the root cause of the famine is not the weather or the remoteness. It is the pitiless war conducted by the Khartoum regime towards the people of the sub- Saharan south who have never been regarded as equal citizens. The southern cause is not a shining one: local warlords steal aid supplies and inflict more misery on the civilian population. Yet the situation has to be dealt with as it is, not in some ideal framework.
Western countries are certainly no friends of the radical Islamic regime in Khartoum, but most humanitarian aid is channelled through arrangements which allow it ultimate veto power. This is partly out of deference to the formal requirements of respect for “national sovereignty”. It is also, less explicitly, because the United States and other countries fear that increased rebel activity in the south – encouraged by large-scale food aid – could lead to the fragmentation of Sudan, causing further geopolitical upheavals in the region.
These arguments should pale into nothingness when set against the immense suffering of so many people. They are crying out of hunger, collapsing from weakness, dying without even a patch of shade: they should get far more aid, and get it directly.
We have not published the worst photographs taken at Ajiep. One shows a woman crouched on her knees in the earth, giving birth as a friend supports her from behind. A dead man with his eyes protruding from his sockets lies a few feet away. There are pictures of live children seemingly as thin as sticks, and one of a dead child being buried in a tiny hole in the sand. There is no denying that there are limits to what can be shown visually: in some cases words may convey the message more effectively. But the assault on consciences has to be made.
It is precisely to focus attention upon the war and the policies which cause more people to die that there must be more pictures, more words and more protest. The people who are dying in Ajiep and many other places cannot wait till another way of tackling human disaster has been found.