It takes zero minutes for a funeral news to cover Juba. Guess why? Funeral rites and occasions have become places where the starving citizens of South Sudan break their fasting in.
When two announcements are announced, for instance, the announcer says people are asked to assemble at Juba International Airport tomorrow to welcome the President of the Republic of Uganda and another announcer says people are asked to attend the funeral rite of late “James Simon” tomorrow, you would find that JIA will be empty, and the deceased’s house will be full of people.
This is because the citizens are going to starve more in Juba International Airport. Of course, the ones who have starved for long may be moved closer to the graveyard by thirst, dehydration, sun heat, lack of thank you, among others.
But when they go to the house where the funeral rite is conducted, they would get something for survival and that thing will ferry them across other starving days until another funeral rite is conducted somewhere.
For a funeral rite, people are not restricted because it is a sorrowful moment to do such. But for an occasion, people are restricted, particularly when it is attended by government officials. This disadvantages the unintellectual starving citizens so much that they get no or little chance to break their conditional fasting at all.
For the case of starving intellectual citizens, their intellectuality may put them in a list of lucky people and that, they may attend the occasion for nothing, but the quest for breaking the conditional fasting. If the occasion is well organised, then there would be takeaway food and food that would be eaten live on the occasion.
This allows the starving intellectuals to eat and carry takeaways to their loved ones. It is normal to attend an occasion, eat and carry a takeaway food home when you have what you are surviving on already. But when you attend an occasion with an intent that this is the only place you and your family can get food from, then how normal is that? It is a dismay, for sure.
For how long are funeral rites and occasions going to be the feeding centres for the citizens of South Sudan? What is the work of the government which is supposed to provide bread and the citizens go and look for the sauce? Is the government providing the bread? The answer is no.
The government is doing nothing about the widespread hunger in South Sudan. And the organisations responsible for the provision of food are overwhelmed because the biggest provider (government) has taken a back seat.
Assuming funeral rites and occasions were banned in South Sudan, how would the starving citizens cope with life? Could it be said like one starving citizen dies so that a funeral rite is organised for other starving citizens to survive?
Could it be said like the death of one citizen becomes the survival of a hundred other citizens? If no one dies, then could that not be the death of everyone? Is this not what the science calls autophagy or self-eating in a layman’s parlance? This situation provokes humanity to the core.
The author is a medical student, University of Juba.