Despite immense and seemingly chronic food insecurity in the horn of Africa, the East African countries and neighbors in the horn of Africa face new challenge each season and are left with no alternative but keep fighting. “EA’s dependance on rain-fed agriculture makes it particularly susceptible to the vagaries of weather… there is a need for surveillance and rapid response to crises to avoid further damage, for instance, stopping wars and banditry attacks to avoid people abandoning crops and livestock for safety,” a study on food security in the region advised.

Being a brother’s keeper for Sudan is going to require the effort of all. Inter and intra-African conflicts but also terrorism persist and consequently the peace, security, democracy and development of our continent are threatened in several of our countries. We must convince our brothers in Sudan to favor dialogue so that the fratricidal war raging in this country ends.” President Museveni guided.

Besides the war, famine was already devastating the neighbor in the north with one-third of the 45 million Sudanese people reported by the UN to have been facing famine but now adding salt to the wound was the war. The attempts by East African countries to have their neighbor return to a life without war portray the importance of Sudan being at peace for the continent.

The Peace and Security Council of the African Union, “underscores the overriding importance of a single, inclusive and consolidated peace process for Sudan, coordinated under the joint auspices of the African Union, IGAD, League of Arab States and UN, along with like-minded partners, while noting that a multiplicity and proliferation of mediation initiatives would not serve the interests of the collective will of the Sudanese people,” it noted partly in a communique.

It is admirable to see our very own president relentlessly pushing for peace in Sudan since the existence of it will be of great impact to South Sudan as well. One fear of the conflict diffusing into the horn of Africa was one of the worries that captured many of the Western onlookers of the then rising uprising.