Great article. We do need more of them.

I would be surprised if an American can find Haiti on a map, much less Sudan. I knew about the conflict there, but was not aware of how badly Khartoum has been devastated.

As I understand it, Sudan itself has a rich history of racism, the Arabs in the north rather consistently trying to root out Black ethnic groups. Call me out on it if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure this is what finally led the creation of South Sudan.

The former leader of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, killed so many Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa people that he is now up on genocide charges before the International Criminal Court. The Janjaweed have a history of association with al-Bashir, and really, the whole country is still a mess because of long-standing and unresolved grievances between Muslims, Christians, and Black ethnic groups who don't consider themselves part of the Abrahamic tradition at all.

But I don't assign blame to any of them, and civilians are caught in the middle.

Sudan is almost a poster child for the devastation brought by Colonialism. They created all these crazy, arbitrary boundaries, leaving places like Darfur (for example) without nationhood.

In a fair world, all the European banks would have to empty their Swiss bank accounts to pay for reparations to try to undo at least some of this damage.

And Egypt, too, needs to own up to some of their own prejudices, which has helped enable people like el-Bashir (with direct aid) and won't allow Palestinian refugees into their country during a time of war.