Famine in Sudan

Famine has the same face everywhere. It's always the same empty look of dead living children with a big skull and a protruding stomach. And faced with such suffering, it's always the same powerlessness that one feels.

We have seen these unbearable images in Biafra and then in Ethiopia and now in Sudan. Once again, it is necessary to be reminded that drought cannot explain such a great catastrophe, even less so in a country that was the breadbasket of Africa.

In Sudan, as often elsewhere, famine is not simply a twist of fate. It is, of course, the product of drought and the result of an exodus due to war. But it is also calamity controlled, organized and programmed by the fighters. One sign doesn't fool. In both camps, there are men old enough to make war, soldiers or rebels. They are well nourished. To eat, you don't need to be a woman or a child. It's enough to be well armed. And humanitarian organizations can't do anything against that.

-- Le Figaro, Paris