The famine in Sudan in 1998 was a humanitarian disaster caused mainly by

human rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...

abuses, as well as

drought A drought is defined as drier than normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, an ...

and the failure of the

international community The international community is an imprecise phrase used in geopolitics and international relations to refer to a broad group of people and governments of the world. As a rhetorical term Aside from its use as a general descriptor, the term is t ...

to react to the

famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accompan ...

risk with adequate speed.Famine In Sudan, 1998
Human Rights Watch, Accessed May 25, 2006 The worst affected area was

Bahr el Ghazal Bahr el-Ghazal (Arabic بحر الغزال , also transliterated ''Bahr al-Ghazal'', ''Baḩr al-Ghazāl'', ''Bahr el-Gazel'', or versions of these without the hyphen) may refer to two distinct places, both named after ephemeral or dry rivers. Chad ...

in southwestern

Sudan Sudan ( or ; ar, السودان, as-Sūdān, officially the Republic of the Sudan ( ar, جمهورية السودان, link=no, Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. It shares borders with the Central African Republic t ...

. In this region over 70,000 people died during the famine.

Causes

The famine was caused almost entirely by human rights abuse and the war in Southern Sudan.Despite aid effort, Sudan famine squeezing life from dozens daily
CNN, Accessed May 25, 2006 Despite the Sudanese government's claims that only the rebel groups were to blame, drought also played a significant role.
Arabicnews.com Accessed May 25, 2006

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human ...

blamed the following groups: * The government of Sudan * The

Baggara The Baggāra ( ar, البَقَّارَة "heifer herder") or Chadian Arabs are a nomadic confederation of people of mixed Arab and Arabized indigenous African ancestry, inhabiting a portion of the Sahel mainly between Lake Chad and the Nile ri ...

militia *

Sudan People's Liberation Army The South Sudan People's Defence Forces (SSPDF), formerly the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), is the army of the Republic of South Sudan. The SPLA was founded as a guerrilla movement against the government of Sudan in 1983 and was a ...

Dinka The Dinka people ( din, Jiɛ̈ɛ̈ŋ) are a Nilotic ethnic group native to South Sudan with a sizable diaspora population abroad. The Dinka mostly live along the Nile, from Jonglei to Renk, in the region of Bahr el Ghazal, Upper Nile (two out ...

warlord

Kerubino Kuanyin Bol Kerubino Kuanyin Bol (1948 – 10 September 1999) was one of the founders of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) and one of the leaders of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) during the Second Sudanese Civil War (1983-2005). He was ...

The government and Kuanyin Bol are blamed for their role in destroying the local agriculture during their attempt to take the city of Wau.The 1998 Famine In Bahr El Ghazal
Human Rights Watch, Accessed May 25, 2006 The SPLA are blamed for their maintenance of

slavery Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

and pilfering of aid. This was worsened by the late arrival of the rainy season and a failure to respond to the situation by the international community.1998: UN warns of famine in Sudan
BBC Accessed May 25, 2006

Effects

The effects on the region were enormous, with the excess mortality estimated at about 70,000 people.Famine in the Sudan: Causes, Preparedness and Response
Luka Biong Deng, Institute of Development Studies, 1999, accessed August 29, 2006] Many more are thought to have been displaced, with over 72,000 people reported as migrating from the threatened rural zones to Wau alone from May 1998 to August 1998.Bahr El Ghazal and the Famine of 1998
Human Rights Watch, Accessed May 25, 2006] Effects on the country included – indirectly – famine as expenditure was concentrated on the materials of war, i.e. weaponry, medical supplies etc., rather than the assistance of agriculture and farming. The situation in Bahr El Ghazal was compounded by a lack of strong government intervention, with the government in the North failing to cooperate with the government in the South.

Aftermath

A ceasefire was signed on July 15, 1998, some eight months after the Sudanese government had first warned of a possible famine. After numerous extensions, this ceasefire lasted nearly a year, until April 1999. However, the Baggara militia continued to ignore the ceasefire, reducing the ability of aid agencies to help. Thanks to a good crop and this ceasefire, however, the situation was brought under control by the end of 1998.Political Complications Boding Ill For Future Relief: The 1998 Famine in Bahr El Ghazal is Brought Under Control
Human Rights Watch, Accessed May 25, 2006 However, the area has remained in trouble and a number of famine warnings have come since the end of 1998.

Notes and references

External links

Human Rights Watch Report on the Famine

{{DEFAULTSORT:1998 Sudan Famine Sudan 1998 Famine 1998

Famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accompan ...

Famine 1998 Sudan Famine 20th-century famines

Causes

Effects

Aftermath

See also

Notes and references

External links