Losing the last vestiges of our moral fabric

Ethnic cleansing between the Dinka and Nuer is spreading across the country, with many observers warning that it is now approaching the level of genocide. The UN confirms that ethnic cleansing by way of starvation, gang rape, and village burning has become the status quo, and as a result, nearly two million people have been internally displaced since 2013.

Arms are pouring across the South Sudanese border by merchants of death-China and Russia-who are refusing to impose an embargo on exporting their killing machines. More than 50% of the national budget is spent on arms and bloated military salaries.

Given all this unfolding horror, what is most disturbing and outrageous is that the international community has not only forfeited its moral obligation by not taking every measure to mitigate the conflict, but proved its miserable failure to provide the necessary funding to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of starving and sick children who are on the verge of dying.

The total humanitarian aid given to South Sudan in 2017 is nearly $1.5 billion, which has not been nearly enough to avert a total catastrophe. Of that, while nearly $1 billion was contributed by the US, the rest of the international community provided only the remaining $500 million combined.

As a case in point, although the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) required US $181 million in 2017 for the Humanitarian Action for Children (HAC) for South Sudan, only 75 per cent was funded. As a result, there is significant underfunding in the Health, Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) sectors, which is to the detriment of children that could otherwise survive.

Where is the UN Security Council, which can pass enforceable resolutions to end the violent hostilities but has demonstrated nothing but ineptitude and self-serving political wrangling? Where are the leaders of the free world, who roll out the haughty concept of human rights but shamelessly are not moved by the outcry of the shattered people? This death and destruction will leave behind a stigma that Western powers will have to bear. As George Bernard Shaw observed, "The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity."

Yes, I know how hard it is to go into a war zone, where a war of extermination is raging. How sad and how disgraceful it is, though, that the countries capable of mitigating this disastrous civil war are sitting on their hands and claim to be civilized, when in fact savagery is still flowing in their veins.

Humanity is not a concept that we should merely aspire to, it should be the reality to which we must live up and never waver. Historic experiences must be instructive. If history does not teach us where we have erred and what moral lesson we can draw out of it, then we cannot escape the conclusion that our so-called civilization is nothing but the attire we wear, as we are still irredeemably immoral inside.