500 Days of Horror in Sudan

With No End in Sight, it is Time to Help the Victims

“The sword is without, and the pestilence and the famine within: he that is in the field shall die with the sword; and he that is in the city, famine and pestilence shall devour him.

But they that escape of them shall escape, and shall be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them mourning, every one for his iniquity.

All hands shall be feeble, and all knees shall be weak as water.”
- Ezekiel 7.15-17

Internally displaced people, primarily children, sit together at the Zamzam camp in northern Darfur. Famine has been declared at the camp, which is currently home to 500,000 people. [Photo: Sudanese American Physicians Association on Twitter.]

August 27th marked the 500th day of the war in Sudan. While the warring factions, the Sudanese Armed Forces [SAF] and the Rapid Support Forces [RSF] paramilitary seem nowhere near a conclusion through victory, negotiation, or mutual exhaustion, the Sudanese people are at the breaking point. The country has become a living hell. It is the world’s largest humanitarian crisis with over 25 million people suffering from severe food insecurity and famine declared in one area and approaching in several others, meaning that, among other things, over 7% of the population in those areas are expected to die of hunger per year. Throughout Sudan civilians suffer from bombings, gunfights, targeted killings, torched villages, enslavement, and widespread rape. Diseases such as cholera are breaking out throughout the country while most of the healthcare system is non-functioning. As if they are being punished by God, torrential rains have washed away the soil and burst the dam which gives water to Port Sudan, one of the few safe places in the country. Even with the best intentions, it is hard to provide aid because western Sudan is one of the world’s most remote and inaccessible regions. Despite the long-time presence of international NGOs due to the Darfur genocide in the 2000’s, it is hard to measure the scale of human suffering or verify the accuracy of the reports which we do receive. There is massive internal displacement and a constant exodus from Sudan as civilians flee into neighboring countries- some of the poorest and most violent states on Earth- whose reactions have ranged from giving what little they can to unforgivable greed or depraved indifference. Meanwhile, when Sudan is mentioned by the global public it is commonly by brutal cynics arguing that a lack of focus on Sudan shows that people only care about the smaller scale but more acute suffering caused by Israel’s war on Gaza because they hate Jews. The reality of the situation is that the SAF and RSF are not close to stopping and that diplomatic and military solutions to the Sudanese Civil War led by those outside the country are currently dead ends. It is time for the world to take a humanitarian approach to this crisis, recognizing that while the cause cannot currently be solved, human lives can still be saved. It will entail great difficulty and expense and inevitably lead to some diversion of supplies to the warring factions, but the innocent civilians of Sudan cannot wait.

Sudan is a vast country, and historically to rule it has been to always be fighting, but despite this, until April of 2023 the capital, Khartoum, had been at peace for decades and was a beautiful and developed metropolitan area straddling the confluence of the Blue and White Nile Rivers. The country had been managed in a classic imperial fashion: ravaging the frontiers to keep the capital peaceful and affluent. Eastern Sudan has seen some of the most impressive, and at times equitable, agricultural development projects in Africa, while in the west farmers and herders are often in brutal conflict trying to scratch a living out of marginal land- and it must be said that the farmers are more sinned against than sinning. The current conflict came about because General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the leader of the Sudanese Armed Forces, and General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo [“Hemedti”], the leader of the state-sponsored Rapid Support Forces paramilitary, took advantage of a popular uprising in 2019 to overthrow the government of long-time strongman Omar Bashir, and then again couped the transitional government in 2021. They ruled the country together for a time, and then in the spring of 2023, amidst a great deal of pressure to transition to civilian rule, the SAF attempted to disarm the RSF, leading conflict to break out in Khartoum, as I explained at the time:

From the beginning civilian have suffered egregiously in this civil conflict. To quote Thucydides,

“The sufferings which revolution entailed upon the cities were many and terrible, such as have occurred and always will occur as long as the nature of mankind remains the same; though in severer or milder form, and varying in their symptoms. [3.82.2]

It needs to be emphasized that neither side has any ideology, ethical standards, or concern for human rights. Most of the population has not taken a side. Perhaps what is most incredible is that these groups are burning down the country and causing massive deaths- both intentionally and through lack of concern for civilian safety- without deep popular support. The Sudanese Armed Forces are broadly preferred by the country’s dominant class centered in Khartoum and also have backing from Islamist intellectuals, but this is generally because they represent state institutions which have historically favored these classes. Alternately, the RSF’s leadership comes from nomadic Arab tribes who have in many ways historically been excluded from Sudan’s national power structure. Much is made of the race factor in conflict between these tribes and darker skinned farmers in Darfur, but perhaps more important to this conflict is prejudice of those from the Nile River against the desert Arabs. SAF propaganda regularly portrays Hemedti as “not really Sudanese” because he is from what are known as Chadian Arabs, which are a significant minority within Sudan. To the extent this conflict discussed in the English speaking world at all, there is an impression that there is greater support for the SAF, because their supporters are more likely to use the internet in English and to have connections to the international intellectual elite and NGO class. However, such people will also tell you that they merely believe it would be more possible to make Burhan transition to civilian rule after the war ends. In my view this a fallacious line of reasoning and a sign of their attachment to the state institutions which have historically favored their social class, but that isn’t a testable hypothesis, and perhaps they are correct about Burhan.

What we know for sure is that civilians are suffering and dying. The SAF shows no hesitation launching airstrikes in civilian areas, while in many ways the RSF are fighting a pre-modern war: riding out of the desert, killing everyone who doesn’t flee, looting everything of value, and putting the village to the torch. The RSF can be harder to identify, and the term “allied militias” is often used loosely when attributing blame, but the devastating impact on civilians is clear. The organization Center for Information Resilience- which it must be said is part of the US State Department “disinformation” blob- recently released a compelling and well-documented video about the widespread use of fire in this war, titled, “Meet the men burning down Sudan,”

It could be plausibly argued that this group is biased against the social class from whom the RSF fills its ranks due to the ties between Sudan’s elites and the United Kingdom, but in at least some of these videos easily identifiable RSF commanders are supervising people torching homes. Alternately, since the RSF doesn’t have an air force, one can safely assume that airstrikes against civilian areas, of which there have been many, are done by the SAF. The truth is in war, as in private crimes, people kill with the weapons they have. Americans and Europeans have been indoctrinated their whole lives to believe that airstrikes are more “civilized” than torching villages [which by definition they kind of are, as it uses advanced technology] but for the people who are victims of violence the result is the same.

Whether fleeing gun fights in the street, air strikes, approaching armies, or your village in flames, desperate Sudanese, commonly women with several children in tow, grab what they can carry and run for safety. In one particularly heartbreaking new story on PBS News Hour a woman described how she has fled with her five children five times and says she does not have the strength to do it again: if the RSF approaches her current location she intends to let them kill her. Often people sell everything they own in hopes of having money to bribe the men at checkpoints to let them leave, never knowing if they will make it past the next one or be robbed of their life savings. Many women and girls are raped by militants, in such large numbers that there is an epidemic of the babies conceived through these rapes being abandoned: in many cases the mothers would be unable to feed them regardless. The stories are harrowing and countless, and the scale of human suffering is unimaginable.

Though Sudan is usually a major food producer, because of the war fields have gone unplowed, equipment and stored food has been looted, and the seed for planting has been eaten to survive. In April it was already reported by Reuters that women and children were eating soil due to hunger, which is past the point of desperation and at the point of delirium. Since April things have become substantially worse as Sudan approaches a second missed harvest because of the war. A senior UN official told the Security Council that as of the beginning of August, 26 million people are facing severe acute food shortages in Sudan. However, the world has been slow to declare famine though many of the criteria- 1 in 5 households facing lack of food, 30% of children malnourished, and 2 out of 10,000 people dying every day for reasons not related to trauma- have been met in regions across the country. On August 1st, the Famine Review Committee determined that conditions in the Zamzam camp near Al Fashir, the besieged capital of North Darfur state, had reached famine as per the criteria of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification. It is only the third time a famine has been declared anywhere in the world since this classification system was set up 20 years ago. To put a scale to the problem, 500,000 people currently live at Zamzam, meaning at least 36,500 of them will die within a year if things don’t improve, and likely many more. The deaths will be concentrated among children. Zamzam is only one of 14 locations which were determined to be at risk of famine within Sudan in a survey in June. Further,

“A Reuters analysis of satellite images identified 14 burial grounds in Darfur that had expanded rapidly in recent months. One cemetery in Zamzam grew 50% faster in the period between March 28 and May 3 than in the preceding three-and-a-half months. The FRC used the analysis as indirect evidence of increasing mortality.”

Bear in mind that conditions were already very bad during the “preceding three-and-a-half months” and would have shown significantly increased mortality compared to peace time.

Sudan is also suffering from the stalking horse of war and famine: pestilence. Services are extremely limited at camps for the internally displaced and international refugees, sanitation is limited, and people are crowded together and weakened by malnutrition. Many hospitals have been destroyed by fighting; as of two weeks ago only one hospital was still operating in Al Fashir- a city packed with displaced people. Now, cholera is breaking out across the country.

A health worker sprays disinfectant at an isolation cholera isolation center. Cholera is most likely to kill young children.

In one week in August, Sudan’s Health Ministry reported 556 cases of cholera. It is not clear to what extent this captures the scope of the epidemic, since many areas are not controlled by the government, if services are available at all. Other diseases, including malaria and measles, are spreading rapidly. In these conditions of crowding, poor sanitation, and shortages of food and clean water, diarrhea and other diseases which wouldn’t be dangerous to people in better conditions can be deadly. However, disease outbreaks are for the most part just starting, and are sure to get worse before they get better even if plans are made to drastically increase access to humanitarian aid.

On top of all of this, nature has recently turned against the Sudanese. Torrential rains have caused deadly flooding throughout the country, destroying homes, washing out what fields have been planted, and worst of all, bursting the Arbaat Dam and killing at least sixty people. Fortunately, this was a smaller dam and not one of the large dams on the Nile River, which would have caused untold devastation. However, this reservoir is the main water source for Port Sudan, the de facto capital of the Sudanese Armed Forces and one of the few relatively safe places in the country, though humanitarian conditions are still bad. The impact this dam bursting will have remains unknown, but it seems luck has run out for the civilians who made it to Port Sudan. Meanwhile, the “Transitional Sovereign Council,” the junta leading Sudan’s government, inexplicably released a video with upbeat music of themselves laughing and smiling as they discussed deadly flooding, the lack of potable water, and cholera:

The extent to which the factions involved in this conflict don’t care about the well-being of Sudanese civilians cannot be overstated. This isn’t as bad as the RSF uploading videos of themselves torching villages, but it is nearly an equally insane thing to choose to present to the public. If you put names on this it would look like the introduction to a 1980’s sitcom.

It is from all of this that the Sudanese flee. Current figures show that over 10 million Sudanese are internally displaced, while over 2 million have crossed international borders; that is roughly a quarter of Sudan’s pre-war population. 5 million children have fled their homes and 10,000 children are displaced daily. The most fortunate are able to leave legally through Port Sudan, especially if they should be so lucky to have dual citizenship or legal residency in another country. Anyone with this option has most likely long since fled the country. Others set out to Europe through the dangerous illegal migrant routes, with a large number of Sudanese currently in France’s notorious Calais migrant camps hoping to cross the Channel, the UK being the former colonial power and many Sudanese speaking the language. Relatively few Sudanese have the ability to make these journeys, and must seek protection in neighboring states.

Of the 7 states which border Sudan, only two are in a position to control their border, Egypt and Eritrea. The cost to enter Egypt has been high, with bus tickets going for $500 early in the war, over 2/3rds of Sudan’s 2022 GDP per capita, with frequent stories of it costing much, much more. Originally, women, children, and elderly men could enter Egypt without a visa, but now they are required for everyone, according to Egypt’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to “regulate, not restrict” entry into the country. Egypt does not allow refugee camps, so refugees have to attempt to rent apartments like anyone else, often living several families per one room apartment with perhaps one income between them. If one follows the Sudanese accounts on Twitter, it is common to so the displaced asking for money to flee to Egypt or for assistance in making rent. Egypt, with its own political and economic problems, seems to be tiring of dealing with Sudanese refugees and they are often targeted for eviction and other discrimination. For its part, Egypt’s government denies all claims about mistreatment of refugees in its country. Of the other state which controls its borders, totalitarian Eritrea has been accused of using the war to forcibly repatriate its own refugees back from Sudan. I haven’t seen a single story of a Sudanese person trying to enter Eritrea, but they probably shoot people who cross their border, because Eritrea is that kind of state.

Those who can’t pay to enter Egypt or continue onward are stuck in camps near the border in other countries. Though there are some abuses, Chad and South Sudan, two of the world’s poorest countries, are doing what they can, though they cannot feed themselves. A small number have gone to the Central African Republic, a hellish country which is only slightly better than Sudan. Many others have struck out for Libya, entering another failed state and walking around 300 miles from the Sudanese border- itself already well into the desert- through the one of the harshest parts of the Sahara hoping to reach the oasis city of Al Jawf. There are no roads in this region and even airplanes drop off the flight radar. I have no idea how anyone survives this journey, though perhaps they are paying guides from local nomad tribes or hiring trucks. In Ethiopia, which is in its own internal conflict, refugee camps have been attacked by bandits or other armed factions, leading many to seek refuge in a forest where there are no services and they must battle wildlife.

Along with Egypt, the most refugees have gone to Chad or South Sudan. A recent video from Sky News follows the plight of refugees who have made it into Chad, where they are safe from the fighting but there is little or no food or access to services:

Though a woman describes abuse at the hands of Chadian security services, there is at least not the shelling, airstrikes, and torched villages of life in Sudan. Last fall there was a touching story about how militants who fled the conflict to South Sudan, both former RSF and SAF fighters, played on a football team together against the South Sudanese hosts, but such hopeful glimmers of humanity are few and far between. The fact is that Chad and South Sudan can’t support large refugee populations and aren’t receiving the outside support necessary to do so. In February the Norwegian Refugee Council reported that in Adré, Chad there were 150,00 Sudanese refugees compared to a local population of 68,000. In 2023 it was estimated that Chad had 1.8 million of its own children under 5 suffering from severe acute malnutrition, just under 10% of the country’s total population, with Adré not the worst struck area but in level three, “serious,” with a “medium” level of evidence about the crisis. While the local population has shared what food they can when they can, there is not much food to be shared.

The people of Sudan have been suffering for over 500 days, but now it is widely said that they have reached the “breaking point.” How has it been allowed to come to this? Where has the world been? There are several factors to the world’s indifference, and most people are not as bad as the monstrous cynics who bring up Sudan to claim that people only care about what Israel is doing to Gaza because anti-Semitism. However, even so, people primarily use the conflict to express whatever they already believe, as I wrote last fall:

There are several reasons why Sudan has not gotten the necessary coverage. A big one is that unfortunately the world became fatigued with human suffering in Africa after the 1980’s, and though there was a great concern about the Darfur Genocide 20 years ago, this has not happened with the current crisis. Another reason Gaza gets more coverage is that the situation between Israelis and Palestinians has been going on for 75 years and is institutionalized on both sides, with sophisticated media access and large activist bases. It is also the case that the suffering in Gaza is more concentrated, though around 13 times the entire population of Gaza are threatened by hunger in Sudan. More importantly, Israel’s war on Gaza is a clearer narrative for both sides. Even people who may say “Free Sudan” [partially in response to the accusation of not caring about Sudan] don’t seem to understand the situation, and as with “Free Congo,” that doesn’t really apply as it is not occupied by a hostile foreign power. The statement doesn’t reflect an obvious policy position. Compared to other conflicts, the perception is that Israel is victimizing Gaza and Russia is victimizing Ukraine, but that Sudan is victimizing itself. The reality is that both the SAF and RSF are victimizing the Sudanese people. Regardless, everyone recognizes Sudan’s “territorial integrity” and it is difficult to put external pressure on the SAF which says it is fighting terrorists in its own country, and even more difficult to pressure the RSF which has no international standing [and sanctioning two RSF Generals, but not Hemedti, certainly isn’t getting them anywhere.]

While plenty of actors have made bad decisions regarding Sudan, either honest mistakes or in immoral self-interest, this cannot actually be blamed on anyone’s favorite causes. It is not the fault of the American Empire, the Zionists, the Russians, the Iranians, Wahhabists, the Emiratis or anything like that. This war is the fault of Burhan and Dagalo, who decided they would rather destroy the country in an attempt to rule it than to allow the promised transition to civilian rule. The whole world was willing to work with them when they ruled Sudan together, and they have been willing to work with anyone who will have them, because they don’t believe in anything. It is also the fault of the former ruler Omar Bashir, who elevated a variety of armed factions in order to use their power struggles to protect his own power, which is how the RSF ended up in a position to challenge the state.

Sudan’s war is also much harder to solve and pushes the limits of what foreign policy can accomplish. There isn’t any clear policy to pursue regarding this conflict. Even though the US’s political class lacks the will, weapons to Israel could be cut off, and similarly Ukraine could be given more or less aid. One reason people are activists about those issues is because there are straightforward positions they can advocate. There isn’t any outside military solution to Sudan, which fortunately has not become a proxy war despite that some want to view it that way. Sudan is around three times larger than Texas but more desert and less accessible. The only military solution viable enough to consider discussing is an Egyptian invasion in support of the SAF, something which would be highly unlikely to be successful, greatly increase human suffering, and most likely simply result in Egypt chasing the RSF around the country for 10 years as the Sudanese continue to be displaced and have their villages burned. To speak of a NATO intervention would be such sheer insanity that it mercifully does not seem to have come up.

There is talk about blocking weapons from entering Sudan, but that is not a decisive factor in the war continuing. The United Arab Emirates have received the most blame over credible accusations that they have provided arms and medical assistance to the RSF under the guise of humanitarian aid. However, the UAE is running something of a neo-Venetian mercantalist empire in the broader Red Sea region and is almost entirely impervious to pressure. Meanwhile, The SAF has been receiving support from Egypt, Iran, and Russia which cannot easily be stopped in the former case because Sudan is too important to Egypt [and there are strong ties between their state institutions] and the latter because maximum pressure is already applied to Iran and Russia about unrelated matters. The bigger issue is this: Sudan’s Military Industrial Corporation [yes, it is actually called that] ran by the SAF owns vast swathes of the economy and is one of Africa’s largest arms manufacturers and exporters, making a full range of small arms and sophisticated military equipment, primarily based on schematics acquired from China, Russia, and Iran decades ago. Though Iranian drones have helped the SAF, it is not what is allowing them to continue to fight. Further, decades of sanctions against Sudan under Bashir made the country quite self-sufficient, hence the military’s sprawling business empire. On the other side, Hemedti is a gold mining magnate, and though his net worth is unknown, by all accounts he is a billionaire and is perhaps worth over $10 billion. It’s true that the UAE brokers most of his gold, but with physical gold in enormous quantities it is not possible to stop him from paying his fighters or to stop the smuggling of arms and Hiluxs from the myriad of armed factions in neighboring countries such as Libya, Chad, and the Central African Republic. It is morally wrong to supply weapons to either side of the Sudanese Civil War, but it also isn’t possible to end the war by preventing weapons from being trafficked into the country.

An image released by the RSF of their fighters in a pickup being used as a “technical.” It is not possible for outside powers to stop the RSF from purchasing the equipment in this picture so long as they have gold.

Diplomatic solutions are also currently a dead end, though one should never give up trying to negotiate. Something strange has been happening in this regard, which is that it is the RSF who are accused of the most war crimes, but always say they want international investigations of human rights violations, while it is the SAF, who control Sudan’s Foreign Ministry and UN seat who have fought against investigating human rights abuses in the conflict. It’s hard to square the contradiction here beyond that both sides are completely shameless. It may be the case that the RSF and “allied militias” are sufficiently decentralized that they think they can deny crimes more easily than the SAF, or that they are relying on the SAF to stop any such investigation from happening. The SAF may be more concerned about the country’s sovereignty after the high level of international involvement caused by the previous genocide in Darfur. The SAF’s reconciliation with Iran implies that they may not be concerned about acceptance by the “international community,” while the RSF is hoping that by using jargon about human rights in their public statements they can receive external help, or at least acceptance if they should win. Either way, the RSF went to a recent peace conference in Geneva, while the SAF decided against going and said they would “fight for 100 years” if necessary to defeat the RSF. SAF supporters often take the attitude that RSF should be treated like ISIS [and thus not negotiated with] but regardless of what one believes about their tactics, the fact is that the RSF are not motivated by religious fanaticism and thus can potentially be negotiated with about material matters. Regardless, in 500 days there has not been a meaningful ceasefire and we are no closer to one.

If there is a military or diplomatic solution, I don’t know what it is. My hope had been that one side would win so the fighting would stop, at least on this scale, but that is not happening. The only thing to be done is to ameliorate the human suffering and focus on humanitarian aid. Even in the best circumstances this is harder than it sounds due to Sudan’s size and remoteness. Al Fashir was considered the most remote part of Africa [farthest distance from the sea] during the colonial era, and while modern mapping has shown that is not true, it still speaks to the difficult in reaching western Sudan.¹ The best way to get supplies into the country is to land in Port Sudan, 885 miles from that city. According to Google, it is a 27 hour drive, though Al Fashir does have a paved airport which can accept at least mid-sized cargo planes. There is no good way to get there by land from any other direction, and the only route from Egypt requires going through Khartoum. All of this would be bad enough if the SAF didn’t block aid deliveries to rebel held areas. Though they deny it, the United States has directly accused the SAF of blocking aid entering from Chad or elsewhere. Everyone who follows events in Sudan knows that the SAF has had a policy of blocking humanitarian aid to rebel held areas since the early 1980s. Sudan’s current state has been described as a “humanitarian desert” with almost no groups operating, and the UN political office even left Sudan due to government pressure. The government is described as “putting up roadblocks” to humanitarian work. For their part, while the RSF keeps speaking of the need for aid, Médecins Sans Frontières says that the RSF is currently holding two of their trucks and will not release them, which is presumably a representative example of their behavior throughout the country.

Getting aid to eastern Chad from West African ports generally takes weeks. In that region it is not easy to tell the difference between a road and a dry river bed on a satellite image, and perhaps there isn’t always a difference. There isn’t even a gravel road going to Adré, just red clay that is surely impassable in hard rain. Google says this “unnamed road” goes for around 100 miles from the nearest paved road and that stretch takes over four hours to drive. The “Adré airport” is a little bush airstrip with a dirt runway. A small number of aid trucks have been let through the legal border crossing, but most people and goods pass back and forth illegally on canoes as seen in the above video.

International assistance helped “rehabilitate” this border post for Chad in 2021. Chad did not itself have the resources to build what is in this picture.

Despite the difficulties with the armed factions, it is clearly possible to get more aid to the Sudanese. For one thing, humanitarian conditions are also difficult in government-controlled areas and there is an enormous displacement crisis, so assistance could be provided in government areas and more internally displaced people could stay in those areas. The RSF claims it wants to work with international humanitarian groups and this could probably be worked out in one way or another even if they have seized some shipments. A lot more could be done to support the refugee camps outside of Sudan, though those countries are understandably concerned about those camps becoming permanent and outlasting international interest in providing assistance. The UN programs have been drastically underfunded, though at least new pledges to allow aid to enter were made at the peace conference which only the RSF attended. At the same time, two high-level World Food Program employees in Sudan have been accused of corruption and are currently being investigated. Still, the reality is that the humanitarian situation in Sudan is so bad that any food, fuel, and medicine entering the country at all is a good thing, and even if the distribution is corrupt it reduces overall pressure. Even if adequate funding and will were to suddenly appear, it would be a long road to getting the people of Sudan the help that they need.

Countless people have died in over 500 days of war in Sudan, by some estimates perhaps 150,000; it will be years before we know for sure. Because of the humanitarian crisis, in another 500 days or even 100 days those numbers will increase dramatically. Meanwhile, the developed world, weary from its own problems, has largely ignored the country while some have used the suffering of the Sudanese to callously make their own points about unrelated matters. It is hard to accept, but diplomatic and military solutions are going nowhere in this conflict. Humanitarian concern for the suffering Sudanese people needs to be separated from everyone’s outside geopolitical and ideological concerns in favor of focusing on saving lives: babies are starving to death and dying of preventable disease every day. It is a collective shame on humanity that it has been allowed to come to this when so much more could be done to help the people of Sudan. This grim milestone has gotten some media notice, but there is every reason to believe that in a week people will again be ignoring the terrible cost of this conflict. However, the Sudanese need help now: they cannot wait any longer.

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If you wish to donate money to help the people of Sudan, Charity Navigator has a page of highly rated organizations which provide assistance to those victimized by this conflict. I suggest you do your own research before making a donation to ensure you approve of the organization’s mission and that your donation can be specifically targeted toward the humanitarian crisis in Sudan.

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Thank you for reading. The Wayward Rabbler is written by Brad Pearce. If you enjoyed this content please subscribe and share. My main articles are free but paid subscriptions help me a huge amount. I also have a tip jar at Ko-Fi. I am now writing regularly for The Libertarian Institute. My Facebook page is The Wayward Rabbler. You can see my shitposting and serious commentary on Twitter @WaywardRabbler.

1. What is called Africa’s “Pole of Inaccessibility” is near Obo, Central Africa Republic, near the where that state meets South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.