ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
We have to remember how to care again. Those are the words of the U.N.'s top humanitarian and emergency relief official on a trip to Sudan this week. Tom Fletcher was in the country to get a firsthand look at what's been called the world's worst humanitarian crisis. More than 11 million people are currently displaced and in need of aid, about half of them children. Fletcher joins us from neighboring Chad. And a warning - this interview includes discussion of sexual violence. Welcome.
TOM FLETCHER: Good evening, Ari.
SHAPIRO: You only started this job a little over a week ago. Why was it important to you to immediately visit Sudan as your first international trip?
FLETCHER: Well, this is the biggest humanitarian crisis we face in a world which is facing a lot of humanitarian crises right now. So it really is the front line. And if I'm leading that effort, I need to lead from the front. So I wanted to be out there listening and learning from those who are most affected by it - 25 million people caught up in this crisis - and I need to be here hearing their voice.
SHAPIRO: There has, of course, been lots of coverage over the last year and a half, but seeing it firsthand is different. Did you feel prepared for the stories, the scenes, the experiences that you confronted?
FLETCHER: Absolutely not. No. I mean, you can read about it. You can watch it on the news, but nothing prepares you for going in. I was in West Darfur today. I got through at a checkpoint that we've kept open, where we've got the convoys of aid going through, and you drive through burnt-out towns and villages, desolate ghost towns, really. And then you sit with the survivors of this conflict, survivors of horrific sexual violence. I mean, what the women and girls of Sudan are going for is beyond description.
SHAPIRO: Among the many meetings you had with government officials, aid workers, displaced people, is there a particular moment or interaction you can tell us about that stays with you?
FLETCHER: I was at a particular center led by an amazing humanitarian, Sudanese humanitarian called Mama Nour. And I talked to the women there who have been most caught up by sexual violence, and, you know, one story of a woman who escaped an abusive relationship only to then be attacked multiple times by fighters on the ground and forced to become the bride of one of those fighters, regularly drugged and beaten, shared with the other men - it's a terrible description, but that's how she described it to me in that fighting group. And eventually, she escaped.
You know, however terrible that story is, there were moments of kindness. She managed to find someone who helped her. She got to the road. Someone picked her up in a car, and eventually, she found her way to this center where, with our support, Mama Nour and others are caring for her and for her kid. She's been reunited with her beautiful son, and she's trying to rebuild her life. And this is someone who has a psychology degree, she wants to go back and work again and rediscover dignity and opportunity, and she wants the same things we want.
SHAPIRO: You also met with Sudanese army general and de facto head of state Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. What did you take away from that conversation? Did he give you any reason to believe that there's hope for peace or at least more humanitarian aid reaching people who need it?
FLETCHER: We did make progress. We got more humanitarian routes opened up, including cross line - you know, cross where the fighting is, to where people most need our help - more humanitarian flights - and I took one of those humanitarian flights to Kassala earlier this week - and more access, more permits so we can get more lorries in, more support in. And I was at the border a Adre yesterday, watching as we got 24 lorries into the country, into Darfur, carrying essential education supplies, health supplies, and medicine, tents, food, you know, everything that the people there tell us they badly need. So that was progress, but it's not enough. We need to do so much more.
SHAPIRO: Both sides in this conflict have been accused of using starvation as a weapon of war. Do you think there are any honest brokers here?
FLETCHER: Well, it's a very, very complex situation on the ground. And I'm not the person here to try to deliver a peace process or to get involved in the politics. I'm really here to negotiate checkpoint by checkpoint, border by border, access permit by access permit, lorry by lorry.
SHAPIRO: But setting aside any resolution to the conflict, whether starvation as a weapon of war relates directly to your humanitarian mission.
FLETCHER: Well, absolutely. We've got to stop that. The levels of starvation are horrifying. We've got that specter of famine in the country again. We never thought we'd have to speak or think about famine again as a - as even a prospect. I hope we can head that off. I think if we get the right support, we can. But clearly, populations across the country are being denied access to the essentials they need, especially food.
SHAPIRO: Wars in Ukraine and the Middle East have gotten so much more attention than the crisis in Sudan, and we are heading into an era with a U.S. president whose attitude towards Africa has been perfunctory at best. What do you think it will take for the world to pay attention and bring some urgency to this conflict?
FLETCHER: People keep telling me that the world is too distracted, too polarized, that we're all too swept up in our own day-to-day lives to actually care, to respond to the greatest humanitarian situation on the globe right now. Somehow - and this is my job, and it's the job of the humanitarian movement and so many others - we've got to find new ways to describe and frame this crisis to get the attention of people in power.
Political leaders - as you say, we've got a transition coming up in America. We've got to make the case that it's much better to try to deal with these problems in Sudan, to get that support on a massive scale. I've described the need for an avalanche of solidarity to support people in country rather than allowing a situation to develop where this crisis explodes outwards.
SHAPIRO: Oh, interesting. So is part of the argument here, if you don't want an immigration, refugee, migration crisis, then you need to help people stay in their homes? Is that how you appeal to people who came to political power on a platform of stopping immigration, to care about this?
FLETCHER: I think that part of the argument is giving people dignity, security, justice, opportunity in their own home countries, which is what they want. That's what the refugees are telling me that they most want because otherwise, what would you do? I mean, you and I, any of us, if we were desperate to put food on the table and give our kids opportunity, then we would move away if we were too scared, too terrified to bring up our kids in a country where starvation is so rampant and where sexual violence is being used as - is being weaponized in this way. Of course we would move. We've just got to find ways to really connect with people's compassion. I refuse to believe that the world has given up on solidarity, that the world - that we as individual humans can't find that connection with our fellow humans. These people are us, and we are them.
SHAPIRO: That's Tom Fletcher, under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator for the United Nations. He's speaking with us from Chad after his visit to Sudan. Thank you so much.
FLETCHER: Thank you, Ari. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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