Stop the Cholera Epidemic in the Sudan Break the Genocidal Silence of the Government of Khartoum

05:46 AM June, 28 2017

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From: The Sudanese American Democratic Alliance (SADA)
Addressed to:

• The United Nations Secretary General, Mr. Antonio Guterres
• The Director General of the World Health Organization, Dr. Margaret Chan
• The International Crime Court General Prosecutor, Mrs. Fatu bin Suda
• The United Nations Human Rights Council
• UNICEF Executive Director and President of the UNICEF Executive Board, Mr. Anthony Lake
• The European Union Commissioner for Human Rights
• The Secretary General of the Arab League
• The African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR)
• The U.S. House of Representative Foreign Affairs Committee
• The U.S. Senate Foreign Affairs Committee
• The U.S Department of State Bureau of African Affairs
• Amnesty International
• Human Rights Watch
• The Carter Center
• The Center for American Progress
• The Heritage Foundation
• The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
• The Brookings Institution
• The Council on Foreign Relations
• The Center for Strategic and International Studies
• The Hoover Institute
• Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
• Freedom House

Since August 2016 there were clear indicators and warnings of the presence of cholera incidents in some areas in the Sudan, particularly in the Southern Blue Nile region. Recently, from April through June 2017 as we speak now, the situation has only deteriorated to a full-fledged epidemic that continues to spread rapidly all over the Sudan, including the capital city of Khartoum.
In its unabated, catastrophic outbreak, the fatal disease has already claimed the lives of thousands of victims in different regions, while many more patients remain simply neglected, abandoned and denied of their basic human right to diagnosis, treatment and life-saving medication.
Nevertheless, the government of Khartoum continues to deny the presence of any cholera incidents in the country by masking the thousands of incidents and fatalities and shrugging off the whole catastrophe. It spares no lies or effort downgrading it to a mere “few watery stool incidents”.
This shocking denial of the fatal epidemic, accompanied with incomprehensible stubborn refusal of declaring the country as an epidemic-afflicted zone that is in dire and urgent need for both international and regional medical assistance can only be construed in their historical context. Such recklessness is nothing but another genocidal crime yet to be perpetrated at a large-scale and country-wide level against all the Sudanese people. It is reminiscent of all the crimes of genocide committed by the same ruling regime in Darfur, the Nuba Mountains and the Southern Blue Nile region. Even innocent college and school student demonstrates are not spared of the blood-stained hands of the totalitarian ruling regime of president Omer al- Bashir.
As Khartoum government remains deaf and show-case its absolute cold-blooded indifference to this massive human tragedy, dedicated Sudanese medical professionals, along with numerous civil society organizations continue doing just the opposite. They have taken initiatives to form an Anti-Cholera National Committee tasked with mobilizing and leading efforts in the dual heroic fight of the epidemic: raising preventive awareness of the disease on the one hand, while providing whatever available health care and treatment for the patients with minimal or nil assistance from the Ministry of Health on the other.
Marvelous and laudable work no doubt, but unfortunately stops much short of curbing the rapid epidemical spread of the communicable fatal disease.
Without a direct and clear declaration of the epidemic by the Ministry of Health and the Head of government to the World Health Organization and other relevant regional and international bodies and organizations, no decisive steps against the disease can be taken, no matter how noble and genuine the initiatives of civil society organizations are.
With the fall season already in, appalling lack of hygiene and sanitation, aggravated by a broken sewage system or absence thereof, most Sudanese people are left in the face of reckless negligence, abandonment and imminent death.
This is nothing less than a heinous intent to invent a brand- new form of a “Health Genocide” criminal act to be perpetrated by the government of Khartoum against its own people.
To stop the cholera epidemic in the Sudan and break the genocidal Silence of the ruling regime of Khartoum, we in (SADA) call urgently and strongly for the following actions:

- To help spread the word and acknowledge the cholera epidemic crisis as both a humanitarian and health crisis that requires a massive international and regional emergency response
- Exercising maximum pressure on the government of Khartoum for a straightforward declaration of the epidemic accompanied with a direct call for necessary and emergency preventive and therapeutic assistance.
- Provision of assistance and support to the ongoing efforts and initiatives led by medical professionals and civil society organizations in the Sudan
- Urge all Sudanese Americans and members of the Sudanese community across the United States to engage actively and without delay in this effort. That include, but not limited to, establishing their own Anti-Cholera committees and contributing to the urgently needed provision of resources and medical assistance.
- Lest we forget that if this rapidly spreading epidemic continues uncurbed and uncontrolled, it will soon morph into a much more chronic and out of control endemic disease with malicious repercussions and threats of all kinds to all neighboring countries and regions.
- The ruling regime in Khartoum should know its genocidal silence and negligent behavior will not continue without accountability.

- Now is the time to act to save lives, nations and societies before it is too late.

Signed by the following SADA Board members:
• Abdelsalam Hamid
• Salah Agbar
• Omer Idris

Date: June 15th, 2017