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sudan
The Sudan Crisis and America's Complicity: When Corruption Fuels Atrocity
The world is watching. So are the people of Sudan. The question is whether the United States will choose complicity—or conscience. We must act now.
Jun 10, 2025
In a world deluged with crises—each vying for our limited attention—the catastrophe unfolding in Sudan has remained largely invisible to the American public. Yet, by almost any measure, it is among the most severe humanitarian emergencies of our time. Over 30 million people—two-thirds of Sudan’s population—now require humanitarian support. More than 12 million have been displaced, and famine threatens to claim countless lives. This is not a distant tragedy; it is a crisis in which American policy and the interests of American capitalists are deeply entangled.
Now, Congress is poised to vote on a set of resolutions that could finally interrupt the United States’ role in fueling this disaster. You can call your Senator and ask them to support S.J.Res.51, S.J.Res.52, S.J.Res.53, and S.J.Res.54—the Joint Resolutions of Disapproval by Senator Chris Murphy et. al. that would block more than $3.5 billion in proposed arms sales to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar. The Congressional Switchboard is at 202-224-3121.
This legislation is likely to come up this week and that makes this a rare moment of real leverage for American activists and concerned citizens. The urgency is clear: unless Congress acts, the U.S. risks deepening its complicity in Sudan’s suffering.
At the epicenter of Sudan’s unraveling is the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group whose origins trace back to the notorious Janjaweed militias involved in the Darfur genocide in the early 2000s. The RSF has been implicated in a series of systematic atrocities: targeted ethnic violence, mass killings, forced displacement, and widespread sexual violence. Investigations by the United Nations, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International have all pointed to the same grim conclusion: the RSF’s actions constitute war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and, in the assessment of the U.S. State Department, genocide.
The mechanics of how these atrocities are sustained have already come into focus. According to Amnesty International, recently manufactured Emirati armored personnel carriers are now in the hands of the RSF. Flight data and satellite imagery have revealed a pattern: cargo planes departing from the UAE, landing at remote airstrips in Chad, and then offloading weapons and equipment that would soon appear on the front lines in Sudan. A New York Times investigation concluded that the UAE was “expanding its covert campaign to back a winner in Sudan, funneling money, weapons and, now, powerful drones” to the RSF.
What makes this all the more alarming is that the UAE is one of America’s closest military partners—and a major recipient of U.S. arms. Despite repeated assurances to Washington that it would not arm Sudan’s belligerents, the UAE has continued these transfers, as confirmed by the Biden Administration in one of its last acts as well as by members of Congress.
There is, however, another angle to this story—an angle that speaks to the corrosion of U.S. foreign policy by incredibly narrow financial interests. President Donald Trump and his family have cultivated deep financial ties with both the UAE and Qatar. The UAE has invested $2 billion in a Trump family crypto venture; Qatar has bestowed a $400 million on that luxury aircraft everyone’s heard about, intended for the U.S. presidential fleet, in a gesture that blurs the line between diplomacy and personal favor. These transactions are not just unseemly; they are emblematic of this new era in which U.S. foreign policy is increasingly shaped by the private interests of a handful of oligarchs.
To call this “kleptocracy” is not hyperbole. The intertwining of arms sales, foreign influence, and personal enrichment undermines both U.S. standing and the interests of the average American. Each weapon sold, each deal brokered, risks making the United States more complicit in the suffering of Sudan’s civilians.
To call this “kleptocracy” is not hyperbole. The intertwining of arms sales, foreign influence, and personal enrichment undermines both U.S. standing and the interests of the average American.
The Sudan crisis is a reminder that America’s actions abroad are neither abstract nor inconsequential—and all the uniqueness of the Trump 2.0 administration hasn’t changed that. U.S. policies still reverberate in the lives of millions. As citizens, we have a responsibility to demand that our leaders act not out of expedience or self-interest, but out of a sense of justice and human dignity. With a congressional vote imminent, the window for meaningful action is open—but it is closing fast.
The world is watching. So are the people of Sudan. The question is whether the United States will choose complicity—or conscience. Please call your Senators today at 202-224-3121.Keep ReadingShow Less
Trump Cuts to Foreign Aid Leave Food Destined for Desperate Millions Rotting in Storage
"The dismantling of USAID and cuts to humanitarian aid has been devastating and unacceptable," said one international aid group.
May 16, 2025
More than a million people in some of the world's most impoverished countries could be fed for three months and hundreds of thousands of children's lives could be saved if $98 million in ready-made meals and other rations were able to leave four warehouses run by the U.S. foreign aid agency dismantled by the Trump administration.
But instead, there is no end in sight to the food languishing in the facilities—or to the starvation of millions of people in Gaza, Sudan, South Sudan, and other parts of the Global South facing high levels of hunger and malnutrition.
Some of the 66,000 tonnes of food, including grains, high-energy biscuits, and vegetable oil, are slated to expire as soon as July, when they will likely be turned into animal feed, incinerated, or otherwise destroyed, Reuters reported Thursday.
The warehouses are located in Houston, South Africa, Djibouti, and Dubai, and are run by the U.S. Agency for International Development's (USAID) Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance. Many of the staff who help run the warehouses are scheduled to be fired on July 1 in the first of two rounds of cuts that will effect nearly all of USAID.
Contracts with suppliers, shipping companies, and contractors have been canceled since USAID was taken over by the Trump administration's so-called Department of Government Efficiency, with the White House saying the agency—with a relatively small budget of just $40 billion—was responsible for "significant waste."
Since DOGE, run by tech billionaire Elon Musk, targeted USAID in one of its first full-scale attacks on a federal entity, the agency is being run by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The State Department's Office of Foreign Assistance has not yet approved a proposal to give the stranded food stocks to aid organizations for distribution, two former USAID staffers told Reuters.
That office is being led by Jeremy Lewin, a 28-year-old former DOGE employee who is overseeing the complete decommissioning of USAID, which has provided humanitarian assistance in conflict zones and the Global South for more than six decades.
Max Hoffman, a foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), said the massive waste of life-saving food rations was the result of President Donald Trump and Musk deploying "some idiot 20 year old staggering around USAID turning things off without the faintest idea of the consequences."
Some of the rations were intended for Gaza, where half a million Palestinians are currently facing starvation and the rest of the population of 2.3 million people are suffering from acute levels of food insecurity due to Israel's total blockade on humanitarian aid which was reimposed in March after a brief cease-fire. Thousands of children have been hospitalized with acute malnutrition since the beginning of the year, but Israel's U.S.-backed assault on Gaza has left health providers with extremely limited means to treat them.
The entire population of Gaza could be fed for a month and a half with the food rations that are on the verge of rotting in the four warehouses, Reuters reported.
Nearly 500 tonnes of high-energy biscuits in Dubai are among the stocks that will expire in July, a former USAID official told the outlet. They could feed at least 27,000 acutely malnourished children for a month.
The food aid was also scheduled to go to Sudan, where famine has been confirmed in at least 10 areas as the country faces the third year of a civil war.
Action Against Hunger is one of many aid groups that have had to scale back operations after losing significant funding due to U.S. cuts; the group said last month that its suspension of work in the Democratic Republic of Congo had already directly led to the deaths of at least six children.
In addition to USAID's warehouses full of soon-to-be-expired food, the U.S.-based company Edesia, which makes the peanut-based Plumpy'Nut, told Reuters that USAID's cuts to transportation contracts had forced the company to open an additional warehouse. A $13 million stockpile of 5,000 tonnes of Plumpy'Nut, which is used to prevent severe malnutrition in children, is in the warehouse now—but could be used to feed more than 484,000 children.
"The dismantling of USAID and cuts to humanitarian aid has been devastating and unacceptable," said Oxfam America.
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'A Failure of Humanity': Acute Food Insecurity, Child Malnutrition Climb for Sixth Straight Year
"In a world of plenty, there is no excuse for children to go hungry or die of malnutrition. Hunger gnaws at the stomach of a child. It gnaws, too, at their dignity, their sense of safety, and their future," said the head of UNICEF.
May 16, 2025
Both child malnutrition and acute food insecurity rose for the sixth consecutive year in 2024, when more than 295 million people across 53 countries and territories endured severe hunger, according to a global report released Friday.
"This Global Report on Food Crises is another unflinching indictment of a world dangerously off course," United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres wrote in the foreword of the annual publication, produced by the European Union-funded Food Security Information Network in partnership with U.N. agencies and other entities.
"From Gaza and Sudan, to Yemen, and Mali, catastrophic hunger driven by conflict and other factors is hitting record highs, pushing households to the edge of starvation," he warned. "Displacement has also surged, as violence and disasters rip families from their homes and condemn people of all ages to malnutrition and even death. Meanwhile climate extremes are growing in intensity—wreaking havoc on global food security, crippling harvests, and breaking supply chains."
"Hunger in the 21st century is indefensible."
Guterres argued that "this is more than a failure of systems—it is a failure of humanity. Hunger in the 21st century is indefensible...
Governments, businesses, and decision-makers must heed the clear warnings issued in this report."
In addition to the places Guterres spotlighted, countries that have the largest numbers or shares of people contending with high levels of acute food insecurity include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, Myanmar, Namibia, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Sudan, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, and Zambia.
Last July, after over a year of civil war in Sudan, an Integrated Food Security Phase Classification panel declared a famine there, the first declaration since 2020. The IPC's Famine Review Committee has also warned of imminent famine in Gaza, the Palestinian territory that continues to endure a U.S.-backed Israeli military assault and humanitarian aid blockade, for which Israel faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice.
The number of people enduring high levels of acute food insecurity rose by 13.7 million from 2023 to 2024. During that time, the number of people facing the worst level on the IPC scale—"catastrophe," or Phase 5—doubled to almost 2 million, "driven by conflict," the report states. "Over 95% of them were in Palestine (Gaza Strip) and the Sudan. South Sudan, Haiti, and Mali also had populations in this phase."
Over 35.1 million people in three dozen countries and territories experienced the next highest level, "emergency" or Phase 4, followed by around 190 million across 40 places who faced "crisis" or Phase 3. Another 344.7 million people in 39 nations were in Phase 2, or "stressed."
Some areas don't have IPC analyses. The publication notes that "in these cases, 68.2 million people faced high levels of acute food insecurity" based on other reporting. While "conflict/insecurity" was the biggest driver of acute hunger last year, economic shocks and weather extremes also played major roles—and the report underscores "the interlinkages between drivers."
"For instance, conflict can exacerbate climate vulnerability by fueling environmental degradation and taking resources away from adaptation efforts," the report details. "Weather extremes can trigger or worsen conflict as groups compete over the changing availability and distribution of natural resources."
"Extreme weather events can cause economic shocks by damaging productive capital and infrastructure, disrupting economic activity, lowering productivity in agriculture, and diverting resources towards reconstruction," the report continues. "Economic shocks leading to unemployment and increasing levels of poverty can lead to social unrest, violence, conflict, and political instability."
This is the first Global Report on Food Crises to feature "nutrition crises" and "nutrition concerns." For the 53 countries and territories with data, 26 fell into the crisis category, and nearly all of them were in the IPC phase in which "at least 15% of children aged 6-59 months suffered from acute malnutrition."
"Around 37.7 million children suffered from acute malnutrition in the 26 countries/territories. Over 10 million of them had severe acute malnutrition. About 10.9 million pregnant and breastfeeding women in 21 of the countries were acutely malnourished," the report states. Sudan, Gaza, Mali, and Yemen "had the four most severe nutrition crises."
Catherine Russell, executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), said in a Friday statement that "in a world of plenty, there is no excuse for children to go hungry or die of malnutrition. Hunger gnaws at the stomach of a child. It gnaws, too, at their dignity, their sense of safety, and their future."
"How can we continue to stand by when there is more than enough food to feed every hungry child in the world?" she asked. "How can we ignore what is happening in front of our eyes? Millions of children's lives hang in the balance as funding is slashed to critical nutrition services."
World Food Program Executive Director Cindy McCain also emphasized financial concerns, saying that "like every other humanitarian organization, WFP is facing deep budget shortfalls which have forced drastic cuts to our food assistance programs. Millions of hungry people have lost, or will soon lose, the critical lifeline we provide. We have tried and tested solutions to hunger and food insecurity. But we need the support of our donors and partners to implement them."
The Global Report on Food Crises reveals a staggering reality: 295 million people in 53 countries/territories faced high levels of acute food insecurity in 2024. At @fao.org we know that #AgricultureCan be the solution, but we need the right support. ➡️ bit.ly/4khEGCx #FightFoodCrises #GRFC2025
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— Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (@fao.org) May 16, 2025 at 6:11 AM
The report also has a section on displacement, which notes that "nearly all countries with food crises have large displaced populations, but data on their acute food insecurity status are only available in about a quarter of these countries, despite clear evidence regarding the specific challenges displaced people have in accessing food."
Last year, forced displacement in countries and territories with food crises continued rising, to 95.8 million people in 52 places, consisting of 71.8 million internally displaced persons and 24 million refugees.
Raouf Mazou from the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said Friday that "as food insecurity worsens and humanitarian crises become more prolonged, we need to shift from emergency aid to sustainable responses. That means creating real opportunities—access to land, livelihoods, markets and services—so people can feed themselves and their families, not just today, but well into the future."
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