The tragedy taking place in Darfur, the western part of Sudan, shows us that the demonstrations of indignation and solidarity against wars and discrimination are clockwork, biased, and sometimes controlled.
No procession, no humanitarian expedition, no garrison in front of the embassies and the headquarters of the large international institutions, which remain silent. Apart from declarations of principle, there is no agenda either from the UN or from the European Union and if other actors are indeed interested in the events of that unhappy land, they are Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the main sponsor of the Islamist RSF militias who occupied the capital, El Fasher, massacring civilians.
Perhaps we can put pressure on these countries by imposing sanctions, closing trade, for example in weapons, we can collaborate with the African Union by putting it under pressure, we can act on the Sudanese government and its neighbors?
The largest humanitarian crisis in the world is taking place before our blind eyes, the largest exile crisis in the world, with 12 million displaced people already. We cannot count the dead, but we saw the piles of piled bodies and the blood, from the shocking photographs taken from above.
They are the only images, there are no reports, just a few voices of witnesses and – among these – courageous priests and nuns who have not abandoned their people, like the Comboni Missionaries, and the heroic doctors Without Borders who, with nothing at their disposal, risk their lives to save lives.
Without images, wars do not exist. Without images, social media does not circulate and indignation does not rise. And then it is disturbing to talk about ethnic and religious hatred: it is better, as usual, to reduce conflicts to economic interests alone.
That there are, Sudan is rich in gold, minerals, rare earths. But the economy does not explain the violence, the massacres, the mass rapes, to destroy part of that humanity. Here we are dealing with genocide, without being able to discuss the term.
In a country of blacks, the light-skinned Arabs won and the blacks are killed shouting “your children will be Arabs”. Blacks are animists or Christians, and for this reason churches are torn down, sacred symbols destroyed, liturgies prevented, women raped.
This drama has been going on for two years, and is the terrible replica of a war that devastated the country at the beginning of the century. Back then we talked about it more, today we are distracted and certainly pressured by two conflicts closest to us, on the Ukrainian front and that in the Holy Land.
But men are all the same, and a Palestinian, Ukrainian, Sudanese child has the same value. I know well that the prevailing feeling is often to chase away horror, so as not to succumb to impotence. But we can do something.
To know, to inform ourselves, to make known, to discuss, and it is the task of politicians, journalists, and all of us, so that at least the light of our piety and our prayers is a sign of our residual humanity. Indifference is always complicit.
(Top photo: Reuters)
