Sudan Drowning in a River of Woe

By David S. Jackson/Khartoum

Yousef Yagoub, 30, a tomato farmer and father of four, sleeps on a dirty piece of cardboard, the muddy waters of the Nile slapping menacingly near his feet. Before the floods, he and his family lived in a flimsy hut made of tree branches. Now only the roof is left, barely poking above the water about 50 yards offshore. "Life," he says, "is too difficult."

For centuries the Nile has brought life to Sudan's impoverished inhabitants. But torrential thunderstorms this summer have turned the river into a killer. More than 8 inches of rain -- twice the average for an entire year -- fell on Sudan in 13 hours last month. Meanwhile, a seasonal surge of water was heading north from central Africa. The combination sent the river raging over its banks, killing nearly 100 people and leaving 1.5 million homeless. In Khartoum, the capital, sewage-contaminated floodwater swept through squatters' camps, destroying thousands of homes. Farther north, whole villages were submerged. In the famine-stricken south, roads and rail lines were swamped, preventing relief shipments from getting through. According to aid officials, more than a hundred people starve to death every day. Many more are so weak from hunger they can barely crawl.

Sudan has more problems besides fickle weather. For five years, the government of Africa's largest country (more than three times the size of Texas) has been paralyzed by a bloody civil war against secessionist guerrillas in the south. Since 1986, Sudan has been ineligible for loans from the International Monetary Fund because of an inability to service its $12 billion debt. In April, Prime Minister Sadiq el Mahdi's failure to deal with the country's accumulating crises brought down his second government in two years. As if all those woes were not enough, a plague of locusts is threatening to wipe out the country's meager crops of millet and sorghum.

Perhaps the most intractable of the country's troubles is the war in the south, pitting the local African population, largely Christian and animist, against the predominantly Arab Muslim government of the north. Former President Gaafar Nimeiri, who was overthrown in a popular uprising in 1985, aggravated the existing religious and racial differences by imposing a set of harsh Islamic laws that call for floggings and amputations for criminal offenses even by non-Muslims. Abolition of the laws is a key demand of the Sudanese People's Liberation Army, whose antigovernment rebels control much of the rural south.

Although Mahdi has relaxed enforcement of the laws, he has yet to void or replace them because they are supported by the fundamentalist National Islamic Front, an increasingly powerful member of his fragile ruling coalition. Early this month, the Sudanese Cabinet approved a new and stricter code of Islamic law, or Shari'a, but it has yet to be passed in parliament. In the meantime, the fighting has forced at least 500,000 southerners to flee to Khartoum. Each side in the civil war has accused the other of manipulating food shipments to famine victims as a weapon to gain support in the conflict. A Christian member of parliament complained that even after the floods "food was distributed in the mosques while those who complained were left standing in the water."

Sudan's limping economy was another legacy of Nimeiri, and Mahdi has not improved matters much. In June, responding to demands by the IMF, the government raised the price of wheat flour and reduced subsidies on nonessential goods. Angry citizens have taken to the streets to protest food shortages, lack of jobs and a 50% inflation rate. Although the rich silt deposited by the flood should give farmers a temporary boost after the waters subside, the economy's larger problems will not go away easily.

For now, the country's most imminent threat is waterborne epidemics. Thousands of flood victims are suffering from severe diarrhea. Health officials warn that widespread malaria, spawned by stagnant pools of floodwater, may be next. A World Health Organization epidemiologist predicts that even if epidemic conditions are kept under control, 4,000 children will probably die from gastrointestinal diseases.

Taxi driver Raham Dahalla, eyeing a darkening sky over Khartoum, hesitantly stuck his hand outside his cab window. "No more rain, please," he said. Sure enough, only a few drops fell this time. But even after the floodwaters subside, Sudan's political, economic and religious problems will be serious enough to engulf any government. For the majority of Sudan's 24 million citizens, the forecast is gloomy regardless of the weather.