Enough Statements. Feed Sudan.

Today, 30 governments and the European Commission have signed a joint statement warning of the risk of famine in Sudan. Canada signed. So did the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and much of Europe.

Sorry if I don’t applaud.

And you know who didn’t sign? The United Arab Emirates. 

Shocking.

Consider the numbers these governments have put their names to. According to the statement, 19.5 million people, or 41 per cent of Sudan’s population, face high levels of acute food insecurity. Five million are experiencing emergency levels of hunger. Severe acute malnutrition among children could exceed 825,000. The number of food-insecure areas, initially identified as 14, is expected to double. These are not distant projections; the statement warns that conditions could deteriorate in the coming months.

What should make us angry is that the statement itself acknowledges the parties to the conflict are systematically obstructing humanitarian assistance. This isn't simply a matter of bad roads or logistical difficulties. El Niño-related drought is affecting more than half the country, but hunger is being compounded by deliberate barriers to aid: delayed visas, stalled customs clearances, additional permits and taxes imposed on humanitarian organizations, and attacks on agricultural land and food systems. Famine here isn't only a natural disaster unfolding before the world’s eyes. It is a crisis aggravated by people with the power to stop it.

The statement’s demands are straightforward: open humanitarian routes and cross-border access, including air access to Darfur; eliminate bureaucratic barriers; stop attacks on the systems people depend on for food; and protect humanitarian workers. None of this is radical. These are basic requirements for getting food to people who need it.

Yet we have seen this pattern before. 

Governments issue statements, express concern and call for restraint while civilians continue to starve. The language grows more urgent, but the response rarely matches it. A diplomatic statement can't break a siege, reopen a border crossing or compel an armed group to let aid through.

If governments have leverage over Sudan’s warring parties and their external backers, they must use it. That means coordinated diplomatic pressure, concrete consequences for continued obstruction and sustained efforts to secure access. It means confronting those enabling the conflict, not merely condemning the suffering it produces.

That is why the UAE’s absence from the statement demands scrutiny. It should prompt governments to ask what pressure is being applied to the actors with influence over the conflict, and whether that pressure is working. Signing a statement isn't the ultimate test of commitment. What governments do, including behind closed doors, matters far more.

Then there is the money, where the gap between rhetoric and responsibility becomes impossible to ignore. The statement calls on the international community to scale up funding, but the governments issuing that appeal are the international community. They are not powerless observers waiting for someone else to act.

Sudan’s humanitarian response has faced severe funding shortfalls. Every delay leaves aid organizations with fewer resources to reach people at risk, while the effects of hunger and malnutrition become harder to reverse. A pledge made after famine takes hold can't undo the damage caused by waiting. Governments that signed this statement should commit funding now, disburse it quickly and publicly report what they have delivered. Announcements without money reaching humanitarian organizations are not a response.

Canada, must be held to its own words. Ottawa has attached its name to this warning, and Canadians should expect a clear account of what additional support the government will provide, how it will press for humanitarian access and what it is doing to address the actions of those obstructing relief. Sudan must remain a foreign policy priority after international attention shifts elsewhere.

The statement is also right to emphasize support for the winter cropping season and for local responders, who can often reach communities that international agencies can't. Protecting farmers’ livelihoods and financing local organizations can help prevent further deterioration. Investing in food production now is far more effective than waiting until communities are starving and then scrambling to deliver emergency aid.

What is missing isn't information, warnings or diplomatic language. It is political will. Sudan isn't a forgotten crisis because the world doesn’t know what is happening. The warnings have been issued, the numbers are public, and the governments with the resources and influence to respond have acknowledged the danger.

The international community can't claim to be shocked by famine while failing to confront the conditions that make it possible, or demand that aid be delivered while withholding the resources to deliver it. Sudan’s civilians don't need another statement promising that the world is watching. They need food, safe access to humanitarian assistance and protection from the violence driving this catastrophe.

The world has issued its warning. Now its governments must prove their words mean something.

Photo Credit: EBRAHIM HAMID / AFP