The situation in Sudan is horrific and risks plunging the country into an ungovernable state (Sudan is the world’s gravest humanitarian disaster – but almost nobody cares, 11 October). It is an appalling example of what happens when internal power struggles mix with conflict over dwindling natural resources and a geopolitics in which countries prioritise their gains over the intense suffering of millions.
There are no easy answers. I speak as someone who works with a Sudanese team at Practical Action with more than 30 years’ experience of delivering programmes. Humanitarian aid is essential. But so is long-term development work.
Sudan is on the frontline of climate change. If we fail to help people adapt to their new reality, when Sudan does emerge from this darkest of clouds, the country will again fall into chaos. The roots of conflict will quickly spread again.
But now we are struggling to fund essential programmes – water management, sanitation, food production and energy provision. We must support programmes that fulfil immediate needs and those that will enable Sudanese people to get back on their feet and plan for the future when peace returns.
Sarah Roberts
CEO, Practical Action
• As an academic working recently with a group of Sudanese film-makers and writers, I was interested to see Jonathan Freedland drawing attention to the silence over Sudan’s war. But he misses an important connection with another news story.
The Labour government risked losing face when DP World had threatened to pull out of Monday’s international investment summit after the transport secretary, Louise Haigh, called it a “rogue operator” over its employment practices.
But there are other compelling reasons to censure DP World. Since at least the late 2010s, the company has been under scrutiny from political analysts for its close ties to the United Arab Emirates – via a holding company run by the country’s vice-president. DP World has supported the UAE’s bid for influence on the African continent by expanding its ports and logistics operations into east Africa, including Sudan. The UAE cultivated links well before the outbreak of war with the Rapid Support Forces, the successor to the Janjaweed militias who perpetrated the genocide in Darfur and are now repeating the same atrocities across Sudan.
There are hard questions to be asked about the motives of a government that turns a blind eye to UAE involvement in Sudan.
Erica Carter
King’s College London
• Jonathan Freedland confirmed what we have been aware of for some time now: the vastly different response by the government and the media to the war in Ukraine compared with the war in Sudan.
In 2017, we offered supportive lodgings to four young asylum seekers from Sudan. We are still in touch with one of them. His asylum applications were refused several times by the Home Office. He had to wait six months before a school place was found for him. He was not allowed to get work. We supported him as he struggled with no education or job. Eventually he was granted asylum in 2023.
When the war in Ukraine began, we offered supportive lodgings to a young Ukrainian man. He had already been granted asylum and an apprenticeship had been found for him. The contrast between the treatment of these two young men seems to be to do with their colour.
Pat Brandwood
Bournemouth, Dorset
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