An internally displaced woman serves wild boiled leaves for food to orphaned children at an IDP camp in the Nuba Mountains in Sudan, in June, 2024.Thomas Mukoya/Reuters
Rebecca Tinsley is a former BBC journalist and the founder of Waging Peace, a human rights group that has been working in Sudan since 2004.
In the Nuba Mountains in southern Sudan, around 4 million people currently shelter on the brink of starvation. Hunger is everywhere you look. Women sift through sand searching for small nuggets of grain, while others boil herbs foraged from the local bush.
Despite decades of international neglect, and often overshadowed by conflict in Darfur in the west of Sudan, the Nuba Mountains have recently become a key hotspot in what the United Nations has described as one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
Since 2023, Sudan has been ravaged by a grievous war against civilians, whose extraordinary peaceful revolutionary efforts were thwarted by belligerents leading a military coup. Around 150,000 people have been killed and nearly 13 million people – including more than 5 million children – have fled their homes, losing almost everything whilst facing the ever-increasing risks of malnutrition, disease, and exploitation.
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More than 700,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) have arrived in the relative safety of the Nuba Mountains since the start of the war. Yet nowhere else in the world are so many people living with such acute hunger.
The Hajr al-Jawad camp is particularly vulnerable. Reports from visiting journalists reveal families huddling in dwindling pockets of shade, too weak to wave away flies. Many children cannot even summon the energy to play. In a recent interview, a reporter from The Telegraph spoke with Hala Fadulama, 35, who was nine months pregnant with a bump barely the size of a small soccer ball. “I feel very weak,” she said, adding that her four other young children have to make a three-hour round trip every day for water.
“Children’s lives in Sudan have been utterly torn apart and changed forever, with unimaginable loss, physical and emotional distress, and prevalent violations of their rights,” warned Mohamed Abdiladif of Save the Children in a recent interview with The Arab Weekly.
“They are hungry, they are scared, they are living a day-by-day existence, with stressed and preoccupied parents struggling to meet their needs. A generation isn’t yet lost, but without help, it may well be.”
Working with international partners, local companies are doing what they can to help. MTN is a pan-African digital operator providing critical data, voice, digital, fintech, wholesale, enterprise and infrastructure. The company says it serves 291 million customers in 16 markets, enabling internet access for 158 million people and digital financial inclusion for 63 million. In Sudan, its technology currently underpins the Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM), a system that rapidly registers and tracks displaced populations, gathering comprehensive data on shelter types, access to services and priority needs.
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This information helps to monitor millions of internally displaced people, prioritizing information for the humanitarian community to provide support for vulnerable individuals in the most perilous conditions.
In the Nuba Mountains, for instance, the DTM helps to point cargo planes – airdropping life-saving supplies of maize, beans and salt – in the right direction.
This is but one harrowing example that helps to explain the vital role of digital infrastructure and why everyone deserves the benefits of a modern, connected life. Access to communication means access to health care, schooling and jobs. Uninterrupted telecommunication services is an essential human right.
MTN staff in Sudan have maintained a significant presence throughout the current conflict, investing in network expansion and community development, even as war and instability threatens to sever Sudan’s communities from the outside world.
Its network has been disrupted by fuel shortages, power cuts, and the occupation of key data centres by armed groups. In February, 2024, a nationwide blackout cut off access to banking, emergency services and family communication for millions.
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Despite the challenges, MTN quickly restored the network, a critical development for residents and businesses that enabled them to reconnect with loved ones, access humanitarian information and resume digital transactions.
Yet MTN and other telecom companies operating in conflict zones have faced criticism from the United States Department of Justice for maintaining a presence in locations that seem incomprehensible to some Westerners – a response that is all the more concerning even as countries including the U.S., Britain and France make sweeping cuts to international aid budgets.
Amid swirling geopolitical shifts and technological developments, it is clear that developing countries such as Sudan need continuing access to telecommunications providers to empower individuals, support small businesses, and drive inclusive growth. Recognizing the central importance of digital services to humanity’s shared endeavours would be a good start.