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.

  • @[email protected]English
    15•1 month ago

    I was a ~12 year old child when the Rwanda genocide was happening and remember hearing about it on the news all the time

    • @[email protected]English
      1•1 month ago

      Curious, are you from the UK?

      I was living in Hungary at that time, and of course ex-Yugoslavia being the southern neighbour, the news was non stop about it. However I have only learned of the genocide from watching Hotel Rwanda.

      • Drusas
        5•1 month ago

        Not the person you asked, but I was a similar age at the time and I was in the US. It made the news regularly.

    • mechoman444English
      1•1 month ago

      Prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, several conflicts were ongoing globally. Significant among them were:

      1. Syrian Civil War - A devastating conflict since 2011 involving multiple factions and foreign interventions.
      2. Yemeni Civil War - Starting in 2014, this war involves the Houthi rebels and the internationally recognized government, with significant Saudi and Iranian involvement.
      3. Afghanistan Conflict - The long-standing conflict saw a significant shift with the Taliban’s return to power in 2021 following the U.S. withdrawal.
      4. Ethiopian Tigray War - A brutal conflict beginning in 2020 between the Ethiopian government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front.
      5. Libyan Civil War - A multifaceted conflict ongoing since 2014 between various factions vying for control of the country.

      These conflicts have caused significant humanitarian crises and geopolitical tensions, impacting millions of lives.

      Although all of these had some kind of coverage in the news, the invasion of Ukraine completely shadowed all of these by a significant margin. Also take note that every single conflict listed above is from non-majority white countries fought by non-majority white combatants.

      The genocide in Rwanda of course had some coverage but not remotely is provident as the genocide in Yugoslavia.

      I’m not trying to be racial or anything like that. This is just the pattern that we see consistently in stuff like this. Military engagement in predominantly white countries has better coverage than in military engagements and predominantly non-white countries.

      • @[email protected]English
        4•1 month ago

        Syria and Libya dominated the news when their civil wars started and for some time afterward, but just like it has with Ukraine, coverage lessened over time. I’ve regularly seen Afghanistan in the news too, but what is there to report there besides what everyone expected the Taliban would do?

        Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was genuinely different than all of these other conflicts, which were mostly ethnic or sectarian in nature. The scope and scale of the Ukraine invasion dwarfs these other conflicts by a significant margin, and it’s being perpetrated by an influential geopolitical adversary of the entire western world that poses a threat beyond this conflict

        • mechoman444English
          2•1 month ago

          Several conflicts and humanitarian crises in predominantly non-white majority countries have been overshadowed by events in predominantly white majority countries. Examples include:

          1. Rwandan Genocide (1994): Despite the mass slaughter of the Tutsi population by the Hutu majority, the international community and media were slow to respond and provide comprehensive coverage. The genocide claimed approximately 800,000 lives in just 100 days.

          2. Darfur Conflict (2003-present): The genocide in Darfur, Sudan, has seen the systematic killing, displacement, and starvation of the non-Arab population by government forces and allied militias. Despite its scale and brutality, it has often been eclipsed by other international events.

          3. Democratic Republic of Congo Conflicts (1996-present): The series of wars and ongoing conflicts in the DRC have resulted in millions of deaths, primarily due to violence, disease, and starvation. These conflicts have received sporadic and often insufficient coverage compared to conflicts in Europe or the Middle East.

          4. Yemeni Civil War (2014-present): Despite being one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, the war in Yemen has not received consistent media attention. The conflict has led to widespread famine and suffering, exacerbated by the blockade and bombing campaign led by Saudi Arabia.

          5. Ethiopian Tigray War (2020-present): The conflict in the Tigray region of Ethiopia has resulted in significant civilian casualties and displacement. While it has been reported, it has not garnered the same level of media attention as conflicts in Europe or other Western-centric issues.

          These examples highlight a troubling trend in global news coverage, where atrocities in non-white majority regions are often underreported, leading to a lack of international awareness and delayed action.