Roots of Famine in Sudan’s Killing Fields

Abstract

In the market square of El Obeid early one morning, an old man was pulling at the tail of his donkey to get it up. A second man tugged its ears. Two boys joined them and heaved in the middle. All of them failed. The donkey was dying. It was all the man possessed. His cattle had gone in 1984–5, his sheep early in this calamity for virtually nothing. His wife had died under an operation. He had lost everything. Seeing the expression on his face, Sarah Errington, our photographer, impulsively took his hand. It was battered and calloused by work at the wells, where for a pittance he was winding water for the local council. It is hard to know what to say to people who are dying very, very slowly.¹