Aid workers fear a new disaster as militia forces close in on a major Darfur city.

On a sunny April afternoon in 2006, thousands of people flocked to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., for a rally with celebrities, Olympic athletes, and rising political stars. Their cause: garner international support to halt a genocide in Sudan’s Darfur region.

“If we care, the world will care. If we act, then the world will follow,” Barack Obama, then the junior Illinois senator, told the crowd, speaking alongside future House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. That same week, then-Sen. Joe Biden introduced a bill in Congress calling on NATO to intervene to halt the genocide in Sudan. “We need to take action on both a military and diplomatic front to end the conflict,” he said.

  • Frog@lemmy.caEnglish
    45·
    6 months ago

    The United Nations has been reporting the famine and war crimes in Sudan for decades.

    • AdamEatsAss@lemmy.worldEnglish
      211·
      6 months ago

      I hate to say it but it’s been going on for too long, most people don’t care anymore. New conflicts have taken the spotlight.

      • livus@kbin.social
        19·
        6 months ago

        Doesn’t really explain it, I mean the underlying Palestine/Israel thing has been going on for decades too.

        The current Sudanese Civil War has only been going on for 6 months longer than the current Israel vs Gaza hostilities.

        • undergroundoverground@lemmy.worldEnglish
          61·
          6 months ago

          Thats an easy one, America isn’t openly funding the side committing genocide and threatening to liberate anyone who doesn’t like what they do back into the stone age, in Sudan.

          Its really not hard to see, if you’re prepared to see it.

          • livus@kbin.social
            2·
            6 months ago

            Definitely. The US isn’t likely to like either side given one of them is tight with Iran and the other one has dealings with Russian mercenaries.

          • livus@kbin.social
            1·
            6 months ago

            No one here has been hearing about it in the news for hundreds of years tho (unless some of you are undead/vampires).

            Arguably the roots of the Sudan conflict go back to the 1300s.

            But in both cases the modern nation-state conflicts kicked off after the colonization of the 19th centuries, and in both cases most of us have been aware of it for decades.

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldMEnglish
              21·
              6 months ago

              and in both cases most of us have been aware of it for decades.

              As an American, I can tell you that is not at all true about Sudan here, sadly.

              • livus@kbin.social
                2·
                6 months ago

                Is it naive of me to think American news must have at least reported on the international intervention into the 2004-2005 genocide?

                And the separation of Sudan into two countries in 2011? Those were both pretty big; I thought that would be why the person above was calling this an old conflict.

                • AA5B@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  3·
                  6 months ago

                  I think it was more reported in News, not news. Actual News has been getting harder and harder to find as “news” providers shift toward entertainment or outrage. If it doesn’t drive clicks, it’s not worth the cost. Not many people go far out of their way to find actual News

                • Match!!English
                  1·
                  6 months ago

                  US news absolutely did but all i remember is that early YouTuber who made sweet hiphop remixes of Bush speeches

                • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldMEnglish
                  21·
                  6 months ago

                  It reported on it sparingly and not with enough detail to make it clear about the history of the region. And it certainly hasn’t been in the news since, so it’s out of the national consciousness at this point. Many people alive today were too young to even remember that genocide. I was in my late twenties and I’m not young.

              • Deway@lemmy.worldEnglish
                2·
                6 months ago

                Boston Legal did an episode about in 2005, as a non-American that’s all I know about the media coverage in the US. But that should have been seen by at least 2 million people. Plus reruns.