By Fides News Service

Fides sources report that since May 1998, when yet another attempt to start dialogue between Sudanese rebels and the government army failed, the situation in southern Sudan has become steadily worse. To add to the distress caused by war, a poor harvest has left the people—many of them already homeless—now in danger of starving to death.

Many fields have been left uncultivated, because desperately hungry people ate the seed that was supplied by relief agencies. Some poor farmers even dug up seeds that they had already sown, for want of anything else to eat.

A catastrophe is imminent, and it will involve the whole of southern Sudan: both the part controlled by the militant Islamic government and the part "liberated" by the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA).

This natural calamity is aggravated by human violence. The area most thoroughly devastated is the region of Bahr El Ghazal, where the main city, Wau, is home for the Dinka people, the ethnic group which supplies most of the soldiers for the SPLA. (A more thorough report on the crisis in Wau follows.)

There is another "all too human" factor in the catastrophe. The Khartoum government waited much too long be fore allowing relief agencies to provide assistance to the suffering people of southern Sudan. Only when news of the ongoing tragedy leaked abroad did the government decide to accept humanitarian aid for the region.

War amid rumors of peace

The Khartoum government has in cited members the primitive Baggara tribes to raid the Dinka area. Since the raiders are equipped with modern arms, the Dinka victims are powerless to stop them from raiding livestock, destroying villages, and killing people. The Baggara tribesmen, Muslims of non-Sudanese origin, in effect form a part of the militant Islamic military force which is now fighting rebels in southwestern Sudan. The raiders are also responsible for human trafficking: selling boys and girls to merchants from the north and the Middle East, to be put to work as servants or prostitutes.

For 17 years the Khartoum government has waged a jihad in the quest to make all Sudan a militant Islamic nation. War and violence have impoverished the country: the economy has collapsed, 80 percent of the industries have closed down. From time to time there are flashes of hope: hints that the long civil war between the SPLA rebels in the (predominantly Christian and animist) south and the Islamic government based in the north may finally come to an end. On February 21, Sudan’s President Omar El Bashir voiced his determination to end the conflict, saying that he might even allow the secession of the south, if that was necessary for peace. But his proposal, like others before it, was received with skepticism.

Fides sources report: "Talks for a cessation of hostilities and negotiations for peace are all face-saving expedients while the Islamization machine goes ahead undisturbed. Those who resist are exterminated; girls are kidnapped and sold as concubines to Muslims; street children and orphans are interned in special re-education camps and ‘Islamized.’" ("Islamization" is the term used for the process—repeatedly documented by Western observers—in which the government’s forces kidnap children from Christian families, raise them as Muslims, and sometimes even conscript them into the army to fight their brothers.)

While political leaders talk of peace, the actions and policies of the government convey a very different message. Every evening the nation’s mass media —which are controlled by the Khartoum regime—exalt the war. Television news reports constantly carry pictures of purposeful young soldiers on the march, and of people dancing and shouting in delirious support. Even the president has been shown riding on a military van, dancing to the rhythm of the chants from a surrounding crowd, and shouting the slogan of the regime: "One Sudan; one religion: Islam; one language: Arabic!" The demonstrations shown in these broadcasts are all clearly orchestrated by the government—at considerable expense, and at a time when millions of ordinary people go hungry and even the members of the middle classes watch their business collapse.

In the early weeks of 1999 there have been signs of turmoil within the Khartoum government. A group calling for an even stricter observance of Islamic law, formed around Saduqabd-el-Majid of the Islamic Brotherhood, has issued statements criticizing the strongman of the current regime, Hassan Al Tourabi, for being a "revisionist." Another opposition group has weighed in, asking for "full democratization" of the country’s political system. But in these disputes, the one aspect of government policy which has not been subject to criticism is the insistent call for "one Sudan," with its clear implication that the south must be brought under the control of Islamic law. So there is no convincing reason to expect an end to the government’s campaign against the SPLA rebels. Unless the international community unites be hind a concerted campaign for a negotiated solution, there is not much hope for an end to the civil war in Sudan.

A tragedy in progress

In the southern city of Wau alone, at least 1,500 people die of starvation every month. In the whole surrounding region of Bahr El Ghazal it is estimated that 700 die every day. Through Fides, eyewitnesses are launching an urgent appeal for food, clothing, medicine, and medical personnel. They are also looking for people who can take care of numerous orphaned children, mostly Christians or animists, who otherwise risk being interned in Islam re-education camps.

A year ago a successful offensive by the SPLA, led by John Garang, enabled the rebels to gain temporary control of Wau. But their victory lasted only for a few days. Soon Islamic troops and Baggara raiders returned, drove out the SPLA forces, and started a door-to-door hunt for Dinka. Countless summary executions of women, men, and children were carried out.

The people fled Wau, but now hunger is pushing them back toward the city, where there are two dispensaries run by Catholic missionaries. According to Fides sources, in the last few months tens of thousands of people have come pouring back into Wau from the surrounding region. One eyewitness re ports: "They come in exhausted, particularly the women and children, seeking some sort of shelter in ruined or abandoned buildings in which to rest—and often in which to die."

"Along the road," says another eyewitness, "I saw children crying beside their dead mother’s body. A little further on a small boy was trying with his bare hands to dig a pit to bury his dead father." A volunteer who works in one of the Catholic mission dispensaries tells how a family—mother, father, and two children—arrived "totally exhausted, and the woman with acute dysentery. They asked for some soap so that they could wash up before eating the food we offered them." The family was directed to a nearby well, and headed off in that direction, but failed to return. "I learned later," said the volunteer (who asked to remain anonymous), "that the mother had died, the father had been captured and killed, and the children abandoned in the road."

Yet another eyewitness tells of a man who arrived in Wau with his five nephews, looking for help. The man was shot at a roadblock manned by government troops, and the terrified children ran away. No one has seen the boys since that time. They may have been put in one of the government education camps where orphans and abandoned children are "Islamized."

There are so many dead around Wau that nobody has bothered to bury the bodies. One missionary priest has taken it upon himself to assemble a group of volunteers just to begin digging graves.

Obstacles to relief groups

Missionaries in southern Sudan warn that the number of hungry people continues to rise. Although there are some relief agencies active in the region—such as the Irish Goal, Medecins Sans Frontières, and the Save the Children Fund—the sanitary structures at refugee camps are hopelessly inadequate, and hunger and disease are decimating the population.

One missionary observes that it is dangerous even to receive aid. At night, Baggara raiders armed with rifles break into the refugee camps, to steal even the bits of food and clothing that have been supplied to the homeless families.

In their call for help, while calling for food, clothing, medical, and educational personnel, the missionaries in Sudan also stress the need for a "plan for the future." In a message to Fides, the missionaries wrote:

A political solution to the conflict must be found and imposed by the international community. We must eliminate the idea that Allah wants all this. What use to God is an Islam which triumphs, heedless of suffering and violation of human rights? n