Just days ago, I stood near a 24-year-old southern Sudanese mother as she fought to come to terms with the fact that her 18-month-old daughter was dying. She had carried her daughter for miles to reach an emergency feeding station, but the child was too far gone to take nourishment.
Holding the nearly lifeless infant for hours, she finally lay her on the ground, tears streaming down her haggard face, only to pick her up again minutes later and hold the baby to her shriveled breast, hoping for a miracle.
Michael Maren, a seasoned journalist and former aid worker who authored the book “The Road to Hell: The Ravaging Effects of Foreign Aid and International Charity,” warned in his July 27 “My Turn” article in Newsweek that you should refrain from “reaching for your checkbook” when you’re moved by graphic photos of famine victims, as such a response simply rewards the oppressors who ultimately “control the food spigot” in Sudan’s politically induced crisis.
It is true that starvation has been used as a weapon in Sudan’s 15-year civil war, where two consecutive years of drought and crop failure have put 2.6 million people in need of emergency food aid. We must put pressure on the Khartoum government (the National Islamic Front), the Sudan People’s Liberation Army and their allies to negotiate a peace agreement and end the use of food as a weapon in the conflict.
However, we cannot wait for a political solution before we get involved in relief efforts. Until I find a way to explain to a desperate woman who has walked days to find food and has watched one child starve to death along the way, that her baby’s “hunger is political” and she’ll just have to wait until government and rebel leaders sort it out, I will do all in my power to keep them alive.
What I saw in Sudan changed me forever. I’d seen the graphic photographs, but nothing prepared me for the horrendous sight of human skeletons walking. In one area I visited, more than 400 people were dying each week.
People whose last decent meal was in March were staggering into feeding centers, some collapsing and dying on the road within sight of their goal.
I saw an old man lying on the ground unable to speak or move, children with untreated wounds, hollow-eyed women holding seemingly lifeless babies so weak from hunger that they could only whisper.
Contrary to pundits who argue against sending emergency aid, the window of opportunity provided by the current cease-fire is allowing food and medicine to get to where it’s needed. This is the time to vigorously support relief efforts. It will make a difference. As the U.S. media turn their focus to the horror of Sudan, it may be easy to develop a deadening sense of indifference. It may be tempting to keep the reality of these walking skeletons at a safe distance. There is no doubt that seeing it with your own eyes makes it infinitely easier to imagine: What if this were my daughter or granddaughter? Would I be so forgiving if the whole world stood by and did nothing while she quietly slipped away?
