Editor's Note: This op-ed originally appeared in The Hill and was written by Enough Project Founding Director, John Prendergast and Director of Policy, Brad Brooks-Rubin.
Although Darfur’s atrocities are widely perceived to be a thing of the past, the UN announced in the last week that 138,000 Darfuris have been displaced by conflict since the beginning of the year, joining over four million Sudanese already displaced by ongoing wars in Darfur, Blue Nile, and South Kordofan states. Sudan’s conflicts have produced the third highest prevalence of malnutrition globally, and European governments are so concerned about the influx of Sudanese refugees into Europe that the European Union last week donated $100 million to projects aimed at staunching the flow of those refugees.
Aid projects weren’t the answer to Darfur’s genocide a decade ago, and they certainly aren’t today. The drivers of displacement aren’t a lack of development. They are multiple concurrent internal armed conflicts, use of starvation as a weapon, the consolidation of a violent kleptocracy, aerial bombing of civilians, and the brutal repression of political opposition and civil society. The deadly status quo has held for years, defying resolution.
Read the full op-ed in The Hill.