by the plant’s destruction … [T]he action taken by Washington on August 20, 1998, continues to deprive the people of Sudan of needed medicine. Millions must wonder how the International Court of Justice in The Hague will celebrate this anniversary” (Jonathan Belke, Boston Globe , August 22, 1999).
Germany’s Ambassador to Sudan writes that “It is difficult to assess how many people in this poor Africancountry died as a consequence of the destruction of the Al-Shifa factory, but several tens of thousands seems a reasonable guess” (Werner Daum, “Universalism and the West,” Harvard International Review , Summer 2001).
“[T]he loss of this factory is a tragedy for the rural communities who need these medicines” (Tom Carnaffin, technical manager with “intimate knowledge” of the destroyed plant, quoted in Ed Vulliamy, Henry McDonald, Shyam Bhatia, and Martin Bright, London Observer , August 23, 1998, lead story, this page ).
Al-Shifa “provided 50 percent of Sudan’s medicines, and its destruction has left the country with no supplies of chloroquine, the standard treatment for malaria,” but months later, the British Labour government refused requests “to resupply chloroquine in emergency relief until such time as the Sudanese can rebuild their pharmaceutical production” (Patrick Wintour, Observer , December 20, 1998).
The Al-Shifa facility was “the only one producing TB drugs—for more than 100,000 patients, at about 1 British pound a month. Costlier imported versions are not an option for most of them—or for their husbands, wives and children, who will have been infected since. Al-Shifa was also the only factory making veterinary drugs in this vast, mostly pastoralist, country. Its speciality was drugs to kill the parasites which pass from herds to herders, one of Sudan’s principal causes of infant mortality” (James Astill, Guardian , October 2, 2001).
The silent death toll continues to mount.
These accounts are by respected journalists writing inleading journals. The one exception is the most knowledgeable of the sources just cited, Jonathan Belke, regional program manager for the Near East Foundation, who writes on the basis of field experience in Sudan. The Foundation is a respected development institution dating back to World War I. It provides technical assistance to poor countries in the Middle East and Africa, emphasizing grassroots locally-run development projects, and operates with close connections to major universities, charitable organizations, and the State Department, including well-known Middle East diplomats and prominent figures in Middle East educational and developmental affairs.
According to credible analyses readily available to us, then, proportional to population, the destruction of Al-Shifa is as if the bin Laden network, in a single attack on the U.S., caused “hundreds of thousands of people—many of them children—to suffer and die from easily treatable diseases,” though the analogy, as noted, is unfair. Sudan is “one of the least developed areas in the world. Its harsh climate, scattered populations, health hazards and crumbling infrastructure combine to make life for many Sudanese a struggle for survival”; a country with endemic malaria, tuberculosis, and many other diseases, where “periodic outbreaks of meningitis or cholera are not uncommon,” so affordable medicines are a dire necessity (Jonathan Belke and Kamal El-Faki, technical reports from the field for the Near East Foundation). It is, furthermore, a country with limited arable land, a chronic shortage of potable water, a huge death rate, little industry, an unserviceable debt, wracked with AIDS, devastated by a vicious and destructiveinternal war, and under severe sanctions. What is happening within is largely speculation, including Belke’s (quite plausible) estimate that within a year tens of thousands had already “suffered and died” as the result of the destruction of the major
Germany’s Ambassador to Sudan writes that “It is difficult to assess how many people in this poor Africancountry died as a consequence of the destruction of the Al-Shifa factory, but several tens of thousands seems a reasonable guess” (Werner Daum, “Universalism and the West,” Harvard International Review , Summer 2001).
“[T]he loss of this factory is a tragedy for the rural communities who need these medicines” (Tom Carnaffin, technical manager with “intimate knowledge” of the destroyed plant, quoted in Ed Vulliamy, Henry McDonald, Shyam Bhatia, and Martin Bright, London Observer , August 23, 1998, lead story, this page ).
Al-Shifa “provided 50 percent of Sudan’s medicines, and its destruction has left the country with no supplies of chloroquine, the standard treatment for malaria,” but months later, the British Labour government refused requests “to resupply chloroquine in emergency relief until such time as the Sudanese can rebuild their pharmaceutical production” (Patrick Wintour, Observer , December 20, 1998).
The Al-Shifa facility was “the only one producing TB drugs—for more than 100,000 patients, at about 1 British pound a month. Costlier imported versions are not an option for most of them—or for their husbands, wives and children, who will have been infected since. Al-Shifa was also the only factory making veterinary drugs in this vast, mostly pastoralist, country. Its speciality was drugs to kill the parasites which pass from herds to herders, one of Sudan’s principal causes of infant mortality” (James Astill, Guardian , October 2, 2001).
The silent death toll continues to mount.
These accounts are by respected journalists writing inleading journals. The one exception is the most knowledgeable of the sources just cited, Jonathan Belke, regional program manager for the Near East Foundation, who writes on the basis of field experience in Sudan. The Foundation is a respected development institution dating back to World War I. It provides technical assistance to poor countries in the Middle East and Africa, emphasizing grassroots locally-run development projects, and operates with close connections to major universities, charitable organizations, and the State Department, including well-known Middle East diplomats and prominent figures in Middle East educational and developmental affairs.
According to credible analyses readily available to us, then, proportional to population, the destruction of Al-Shifa is as if the bin Laden network, in a single attack on the U.S., caused “hundreds of thousands of people—many of them children—to suffer and die from easily treatable diseases,” though the analogy, as noted, is unfair. Sudan is “one of the least developed areas in the world. Its harsh climate, scattered populations, health hazards and crumbling infrastructure combine to make life for many Sudanese a struggle for survival”; a country with endemic malaria, tuberculosis, and many other diseases, where “periodic outbreaks of meningitis or cholera are not uncommon,” so affordable medicines are a dire necessity (Jonathan Belke and Kamal El-Faki, technical reports from the field for the Near East Foundation). It is, furthermore, a country with limited arable land, a chronic shortage of potable water, a huge death rate, little industry, an unserviceable debt, wracked with AIDS, devastated by a vicious and destructiveinternal war, and under severe sanctions. What is happening within is largely speculation, including Belke’s (quite plausible) estimate that within a year tens of thousands had already “suffered and died” as the result of the destruction of the major
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