Reconstruction
The 1998 famine in Bahr el Ghazal was not simply a harvest failure. It emerged during Sudan’s second civil war after years of raiding, displacement, crop destruction, and theft of cattle and grain had stripped households of reserves. A poor 1997 harvest and erratic weather narrowed the margin further. In January 1998, fighting around Wau drove tens of thousands of Dinka and Jur civilians into already food-deficit rural areas. On February 4, the Sudanese government banned most relief flights into rebel-held Bahr el Ghazal; restrictions were eased only gradually through March. Human Rights Watch also documented diversion, looting, and “taxation” of relief by armed and local authorities.
What vanished first was not one dish but an entire food system. Southern Sudanese households normally combined farming, livestock keeping, fishing, hunting, and trade; sorghum and maize were major cultivated cereals, while livestock products supplied an important part of many diets. Raids removed cattle and therefore milk, exchange value, and traction; displacement separated people from fields, stores, fishing grounds, and markets. Trade routes collapsed even where grain existed elsewhere. Some famine victims exhausted wild fruits and leaves. Investigators recorded people digging into anthills and sifting soil for grains of wild rice, hours of work for roughly a cup of food. Such details are direct documentary observations, but they should not be mistaken for a complete catalogue of famine foods.
Relief became a substitute food system. Operation Lifeline Sudan and the World Food Programme moved cereals—especially sorghum and maize—along with pulses, vegetable oil, salt, and blended foods. Grain and pulses could be cooked by households as take-home dry rations; feeding centres also prepared wet rations and therapeutic or supplementary feeds for severely malnourished children. Yet selective feeding could not compensate for inadequate general distributions: child rations were often shared with whole families. In Ajiep, an MSF survey reported catastrophic malnutrition and an exceptionally high crude mortality rate in July 1998, while hungry people walked for days toward feeding sites.
After access improved, WFP mounted what FAO described as its largest humanitarian airdrop operation to that date. Air deliveries were supplemented by roads and barges; more than 98,000 tonnes of relief food reached over two million affected people across Sudan between January and November. A July ceasefire, wider distributions, and the new harvest reduced mortality later in the year, although flooding again blocked some airstrips and deficits persisted. Death-toll estimates vary widely and remain methodologically uncertain, so no single figure should be treated as definitive.
The famine’s lasting significance lies in its demonstration that food availability alone does not prevent starvation. Sudan had grain surpluses while war severed access through violence, asset stripping, market fragmentation, and political control of humanitarian transport. The response strengthened attention to negotiated access, diversified logistics, general rations alongside therapeutic feeding, and protection of civilian livelihoods. Its connection to food today is therefore institutional rather than culinary: modern famine analysis increasingly asks not only whether food exists, but who can safely produce, trade, reach, and receive it.
Historical context
Bahr el Ghazal formed part of southern Sudan; the Republic of South Sudan did not become independent until July 9, 2011. Sudan’s second civil war had continued since 1983. FAO estimated southern Sudan’s 1998 population at about 5.3 million across roughly 640,000 square kilometres, with approximately 800,000 agriculturally active subsistence or near-subsistence households. Operation Lifeline Sudan, created in 1989 after the region’s 1988 famine, coordinated cross-line relief in government- and rebel-held territory. Although Sudan produced ample grain nationally in 1998, warfare, destroyed infrastructure, poverty, and fragmented markets prevented southern deficit areas from obtaining those supplies.
Evidence
Written sources
StrongContemporaneous FAO, WFP, MSF, parliamentary, and human-rights documentation records displacement, crop and livestock losses, relief restrictions, food deliveries, malnutrition, and mortality.
Food identification
ModerateReports directly identify sorghum, maize, pulses, vegetable oil, blended foods, wild fruits, leaves, and grains described as wild rice. They do not provide a comprehensive inventory of everything eaten in every locality.
Dating
StrongThe acute famine and its major political, nutritional, and relief developments are securely documented during 1998, although serious food deficits continued into 1999.
Preparation method
LimitedSources distinguish wet rations prepared at feeding centres from dry take-home rations and describe the recovery of wild grains from anthills, but household recipes and cooking methods are incompletely documented.
Geographic attribution
StrongMultiple contemporary sources identify Bahr el Ghazal, especially northern areas and locations such as Ajiep, Wau, and Aweil, as the principal famine zone.
Historical interpretation
ModerateEvidence strongly supports war, raiding, displacement, asset stripping, relief obstruction, and diversion as central causes, with poor harvests and erratic weather contributing. The relative weight assigned to individual actors and environmental factors remains interpretive.
Sources
- 1.Human Rights Watch (1999). Famine in Sudan, 1998: The Human Rights Causes. Human Rights Watch. www.hrw.org/reports/1999/sudan/Modern synthesis
- 2.Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (1998). FAO Crop and Food Supply Assessment Mission to Southern Sudan. FAO Global Information and Early Warning System. www.fao.org/4/x0388e/x0388e00.htmHistorical primary source
- 3.Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and World Food Programme (1998). FAO/WFP Crop and Food Supply Assessment Mission to Sudan. FAO Global Information and Early Warning System and World Food Programme. www.fao.org/4/x0771e/x0771e00.htmHistorical primary source
- 4.Médecins Sans Frontières (1998). Ajiep, South Sudan: 120 People Dying from Starvation Every Day. Médecins Sans Frontières. www.msf.org/ajiep-south-sudan-120-people-dying-sHistorical primary source
Limitations
- moderatedescription.location
In 1998 Bahr el Ghazal was part of southern Sudan, not an independent country called South Sudan. South Sudan became sovereign on July 9, 2011; “South Sudan” is accurate only as a present-day geographic locator.
