Famine is South Sudan Photo: www.voanews.com

It has always been a tragic accident of history to be born South Sudanese, or so it seems. The people of that wretched country have known some of the most brutal suffering in Africa, a continent with no shortage of bad superlatives. But even by Africa’s cheerless standards, South Sudan is in particularly in bad shape, whichever way you look at it.

The civil war between the government and the forces of former vice president Riek Machar has continued unabated, despite the ‘ceasefire’ signed in Addis Ababa a couple of weeks ago.

The two parties to the conflict are blaming everyone but themselves: President Kiir blames the United States, Sudan, and Ethiopia. Machar’s rebels blame Uganda, Eritrea, Kenya and China. President Kiir claims the West wants to wrest control of South Sudan’s oil resources from the Chinese, while Machar claims the exact opposite.

Proxy conflict

At least the two parties appear to agree on one thing: that the war appears to be a proxy conflict, Africa’s first overt resource war, fought, as usual, by Africans on behalf of their foreign masters.

As the two exchange artillery rounds and accusations, death and state failure have South Sudan in their grip. 5 million people, just over half the country’s population, are officially without food, and they need aid immediately. For the first time in 20 years anywhere in the world, the Red Cross will undertake air drops of food and medical supplies, to help prevent mass starvation.

Half a million people have fled South Sudan since the fighting began in December, with most headed for Kenya and Uganda. They include, rather annoyingly, the families of Mr Kiir and Mr Machar, both groups living happily in Nairobi. One of Mr Kiir’s sons was even arrested for drunken antics in Nairobi.

The fighting has ensured that South Sudan’s farmers have not been able to prepare their fields for the planting season. The long rains begin this week and, in this angry land, even the rain falls with anger.

Entire states will be rendered impassable and inaccessible, and those marooned without food will starve in, ironically, a lush green paradise overgrown with inedible plants and teeming with wildlife.

A measure of blame for this coming famine in South Sudan must go to neighbouring countries. When the photos of emaciated kids with distended stomachs and flies buzzing around their eyes and nostrils emerge, the people of Kenya and of Uganda must remember that their own governments have had a starring role to play in the misfortunes that stalk South Sudan.

Juba is practically a client State of Kenya and Uganda, and without our indulgence, they would not even exist. Bringing pressure to bear on Mr Kiir and Mr Machar is easy: a threat to expel their families, who would not be accepted as refugees in the West, from Nairobi and seize their considerable assets in Kenya would very quickly bear results.

The United States raised the possibility of the two facing charges of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court, but we know this is no longer as potent a threat as before.

Cutting off weapons supplies and banning the travel of their dignitaries would also help. In the end, though, this is Africa: we will do nothing, and the wretched of South Sudan will be firmly in the Grim Reaper’s sights. Africa at its uncaring worst.



