There's a lot of talk about the "international community", but to be honest I feel like this terminology cheapens the value and symbolism of community. Frankly the response, sorry lack of response, the "international community" is having towards the conflict(s) in Sudan right now is downright embarrassing.
The impetus behind this blog post was when I went to my google news page and saw that none of the world news stories were related to Sudan. The first story was this one stating that the Syrian conflict has caused almost 9000 people to flee into Turkey. This is serious, and any single person being forced away from their home is a terrible thing, but to give some comparative perspective I offer up the following facts: as of the 7th of June in Abyei alone over 100,000 people were displaced, while a separate conflict brews in South Kordofan displacing 60,000 people. There have been calls for the UN security council to institute a No-Fly zone to stop the reported ethnic cleansing in Nuba and nothing is happening.
What's the deal international community? Our MCC advocacy team here in Sudan is not the only group advocating for some attention on behalf of this less-than-a-month-away-from-being-the-newest-country-in-the-world but there is little press. I know not everything can make headlines all of the time, I know that the world is small and there are increasing pockets of terrible violence that deserve media-face-time but it is beyond frustrating to be on the other side of the media's flirting interest. I guess I think we could all do for a little less press on the Stanley Cup and a little more attention paid to this the, for-now, largest country in Africa.
The impetus behind this blog post was when I went to my google news page and saw that none of the world news stories were related to Sudan. The first story was this one stating that the Syrian conflict has caused almost 9000 people to flee into Turkey. This is serious, and any single person being forced away from their home is a terrible thing, but to give some comparative perspective I offer up the following facts: as of the 7th of June in Abyei alone over 100,000 people were displaced, while a separate conflict brews in South Kordofan displacing 60,000 people. There have been calls for the UN security council to institute a No-Fly zone to stop the reported ethnic cleansing in Nuba and nothing is happening.
What's the deal international community? Our MCC advocacy team here in Sudan is not the only group advocating for some attention on behalf of this less-than-a-month-away-from-being-the-newest-country-in-the-world but there is little press. I know not everything can make headlines all of the time, I know that the world is small and there are increasing pockets of terrible violence that deserve media-face-time but it is beyond frustrating to be on the other side of the media's flirting interest. I guess I think we could all do for a little less press on the Stanley Cup and a little more attention paid to this the, for-now, largest country in Africa.
Wow - you're right. We really aren't hearing about all this. Even when I searched "Sudan" in Google News I didn't get many results...even Aljazeera didn't have much on their home page. Thanks for increasing my awareness about what is going on.
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