Sudan: In the Shadow of South Sudan's Catastrophe, Khartoum's Actions Are Escaping Scrutiny

24 February 2014
opinion

The various crises in (northern) Sudan have recently largely escaped notice as news attention is relentlessly focused on the worsening crisis in South Sudan. The accelerating violence--increasingly ethnically inflected--has become an immense engine of displacement. The humanitarian needs generated by what will soon be more than 1 million internally displaced persons are staggering. And the political crisis in Juba that precipitated the violence shows no sign of resolution in the near term. Fighting in Unity, Jonglei, Upper Nile, and Central Equatoria (Juba) has been most intense and most deeply disturbing, as countless dispatches and sources on the ground continue to reveal. But there are also reports of violence in other of the ten states of South Sudan (e.g., Warrap), and as fighting continues it becomes increasingly likely that the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) "In Opposition" will begin to fragment; the SPLA forces that have remained loyal to the government in Juba may also fragment. Old divisions overcome during the days of the long civil war with Khartoum may soon re-open, making humanitarian access more difficult and unpredictable; if divisions become numerous enough, command and control will be almost impossible, paralyzing air transport of humanitarian supplies--and all this occurs only a couple of months before the rainy season begins to make overland transport impossible in many areas.

This is an immense and complex news story, often reported in sensationalistic terms, but with some excellent journalists working hard to convey the story with accuracy (Hannah McNeish, Mading Ngor, Nicholas Kulish). Toby Lanzer, who heads up UN humanitarian operations and coordinates the activities of the UN with nongovernmental humanitarian organizations (NGOs), has so far performed admirably and with an appropriate urgency and unbounded energy. He has also provided a wealth of information via Twitter.

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