A young boy pushes a bicycle towards the gate of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan compound in Bentiu, South Sudan, on Jan. 12, 2014.MACKENZIE KNOWLES-COURSIN/The Associated Press
It may come as a surprise to those who are fixated on a scary-sounding disease in West Africa, but a much more horrific disaster is quietly gathering momentum in another corner of Africa with almost no attention from the world. And this one is a man-made catastrophe.
In terms of sheer numbers, the humanitarian emergency in South Sudan is far worse than the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. But the crisis in South Sudan lacks the dramatic images of hot zones, space suits, massive bleeding and mystery viruses. Instead it's a more mundane mix of the usual factors: war, political killings, ethnic clashes, food shortages and egotistical politicians.
More than 10,000 people have been killed in the violence in South Sudan in the past eight months, and a further 50,000 children could die of malnutrition this year, according to United Nations agencies. Nearly four million people, a third of the country's entire population, are dangerously short of food, and about 1.5 million people are homeless from the fighting. Compare that with about 1,000 dead in the Ebola outbreak.
The food shortages in South Sudan are "now the worst in the world," the UN Security Council says. There are fears that the crisis could cross the threshold into a full-scale famine. The latest official assessment, to be released in early September, is expected to show that the spread of hunger has reached even more dangerous levels.
The catastrophe in South Sudan might lack the sensational overtones of the Ebola crisis, but some of its images are as disturbing as anything in the Ebola zone. At a UN military base in the war-ravaged town of Bentiu, where nearly 40,000 people have sought shelter from the violence, heavy rain and flooding in July have left the camp knee-deep in sewage. The living conditions are so appalling that at least one child is dying every day.
If you need an image to capture the horror of South Sudan these days, think of the thousands of homeless people at the UN camp who must sleep standing up, often with babies in their arms, to avoid the sewage-tainted water in their tents or crude shelters.
"Over a thousand makeshift shelters were filled with floodwater contaminated by sewage," says a report by Ivan Gayton, a Canadian who serves as emergency coordinator in Bentiu for the relief agency Médecins sans frontières (Doctors Without Borders).
"People used cooking pots to scoop out the water and tried to build mud dams across doorways in order to prevent it from entering, but to no avail."
The conditions are "an affront to human dignity," he said. "The inadequate supply of clean drinking water or latrines contributes to a constant burden of infection among children that live here."
Despite the deadly living conditions, the 40,000 people at the UN base are too frightened to leave. Some women who leave the camp to search for firewood have been raped. Armed men are stationed just a few metres outside the camp, often harassing or beating those who enter or exit the camp.
"Groups of armed men dominate every building and public place in the town," Mr. Gayton said. "The threat of further violence hangs in the air and the sound of low-level combat is audible in the distance."
In total, about 100,000 people have taken shelter at UN bases in South Sudan. Yet despite the humanitarian disaster, the fighting and killing has continued. In Upper Nile State, six unarmed aid workers were killed by a local militia last week, prompting the withdrawal of hundreds of other aid workers.
A new report by Human Rights Watch has concluded that both the government and the opposition forces in South Sudan have committed "extraordinary acts of cruelty that amount to war crimes." A political rivalry between President Salva Kiir and former vice-president Riek Machar has taken on an ethnic dimension, and much of the killing of civilians has been ethnically targeted. In an ominous echo of the Rwandan genocide, at least one radio station has broadcast messages of ethnic hatred, urging the killing or rape of civilians.
For years, the United States and Canada had strongly supported South Sudan, helping it gain independence from Sudan in 2011 – partly because its millions of Christians seemed to be the victims of religious persecution by a militant Islamist government in Khartoum. Yet now South Sudan's leaders are perpetrating their own atrocities, and Western leaders are increasingly angry. Their criticism has become blunt and impatient.
"The people of South Sudan are suffering because of the inability of South Sudan's leaders to put their people's interests above their own," said U.S. National Security Advisor Susan Rice, even as she announced another $180-million in humanitarian aid.
Mr. Kiir and Mr. Machar have engaged in sporadic peace talks, but they have repeatedly failed to implement their agreements and the talks have dragged on ineffectively. Under the latest accord, a transitional government was supposed to be set up by Aug. 10, but the deadline was not met.
"This is an outrage and an insult to the people of South Sudan," said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. "Neither side engaged in peace talks seriously."
He expressed the same frustration in harsh comments last January, but the leaders ignored him. Both the United States and the United Nations are now threatening to impose sanctions on the South Sudanese leaders, but analysts are skeptical that sanctions could work.
Even while the peace talks have dragged on, South Sudan has continued to buy weapons from China and other suppliers. Now there are reports of more weapons being brought into the country to prepare for further fighting when the current rainy season is over. The man-made catastrophe will continue.