
The Crisis of American Leadership Reaches an Empty Desert
Several months ago, I was reporting in Sudan with the photographer Lynsey Addario. She recently returned to the region and spent several days photographing and speaking with some of the people who are streaming into Tiné. According to aid workers on the ground, more than 30,000 people have arrived there since regional fighting intensified in mid-April, and more than 3,500 are now arriving every day. The photos below capture the desperation of people with nowhere to go, the absence of infrastructure to help them, the desolation of the empty desert.
Most of the people in Tiné and nearby towns are coming from Zamzam, a famine-stricken camp for displaced people in North Darfur. Aid trucks carrying food have long had difficulty reaching Zamzam, thanks to ongoing violence, bad roads, and the Sudanese government's reluctance to let international organizations operate in areas controlled by its rivals. Over the past few weeks, the Rapid Support Forces, the militia that is the Sudanese army's main antagonist, raised the stakes further. The RSF tightened its siege of El-Fasher, the largest city in North Darfur, and began shelling Zamzam itself.
The core of the RSF consists of Arabic-speaking nomads, once known as the Janjaweed, who have long been in conflict with the non-Arab farmers in this part of Sudan. Their lethal rivalry is not a religious dispute—both sides are overwhelmingly Muslim—and the ethnic differences are blurry. Nevertheless, refugees in Tiné say RSF soldiers are interrogating people escaping from Zamzam and El-Fasher, and murdering men who look 'African' instead of 'Arab,' who speak the wrong language or who come from the wrong tribe. 'If your language is Arabic, they will let you go,' a woman named Fatima Suleiman recounted. Those who did not speak it, she said, were murdered on the spot. Her dark-skinned son, Ahmed, a student who knows some English, was spared because he speaks Arabic too, though his friends were not as fortunate. He watched them get gunned down.
In theory, the Trump administration still supports emergency humanitarian aid. But in practice, the cuts to logistics and personnel, the abrupt changes to payments, and the associated chaos have hampered all of the international humanitarian organizations working in Tiné and everywhere else. The Chadian Red Cross lacks transport for the wounded. The World Food Program's supplies are unreliable because support systems have been cut. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is cutting staff due to budget constraints. Jean-Paul Habamungu Samvura, who represents UNHCR in eastern Chad, said that in his 20-year career, he could not recall refugees ever being offered so little.
'Our big donor is the U.S.,' Samvura said. But in February, UNHCR was instructed to alter its services. 'Things we are used to seeing as lifesaving activity, like providing shelter, are no longer considered lifesaving activity,' he explained. That leaves his team with an unsolvable problem: 'Where to put people at least to give them a bit of shading.' Some of his staff have been told that their jobs will end as soon as June, but the crisis will not end in June.
Local Sudanese groups, part of a mutual-aid movement called Emergency Response Rooms, are collecting donations from overseas and have begun offering meals to refugees, as they do all over Sudan. But if the number of displaced people continues to grow as the scale of the disaster expands, these volunteers will also need more resources, if only to ensure that everyone in Tiné eats a meal every day. Eyewitnesses report people dying of thirst on the way to Tiné, and malnourished children arriving among the refugees.
This is a dramatic moment in a devastating war. More people have been displaced by violence in Sudan than in Ukraine and Gaza combined. Statements about Sudan are regularly made at the UN and in other international forums. And yet the people in these photographs seem to have been abandoned in an empty landscape. As the United States withdraws and international institutions decay, their ordeal may be a harbinger of what is to come.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


The Hill
5 minutes ago
- The Hill
Six months in, Trump's numbers are stronger than in his first term
Six months into his second term, President Trump and Republicans are in better shape than eight years ago. Unquestionably, President Trump remains a divisive political figure. However, he has expanded his base and continues to hold it. In contrast, Democrats have been unable to capitalize on Trump's political vulnerabilities and have lost ground compared to 2017. With the House's passage of his rescission package, Trump scored another major win. He has had many, both at home and abroad: a successful strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, enactment of the ' big, beautiful ' budget reconciliation bill, a multitude of favorable Supreme Court decisions, DOGE's cuts, closing the border and deportations. Trump is doing what he promised. His base should be pleased. It is a striking contrast from 2017 when he had a much more mixed record: enactment of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act but an Obamacare fiasco. However, while today's accomplishments play well to his base, how is Trump doing overall? The answer is important because Republicans took a beating in 2018's midterm elections, Democrats gaining 41 seats in the House and the majority. Trump's ability to pass legislation was derailed, his administration was continually dogged by House investigations and he was impeached twice. Trump remains divisive. That hasn't changed and clearly never will. Six months after his inauguration, according to the July 20 RealClearPolitics average of national polls, Trump's net job approval rating was minus-6.6 percentage points. His average approval rating of 45.5 percent is 4.4 percentage points below his share of the 2024 popular vote. However, Trump is well ahead of where he was at roughly the same point in his first term. On July 19, 2017, Trump was at minus-16 percentage points in his job approval: 39.7-55.7 percent. Further, Trump's current job approval-disapproval rating is 50 to 48 percent in Real Clear Politics' only poll (Rasmussen) of likely voters — which is tied with his share of 2024's popular vote. Trump's comparatively favorable showing is carrying over to congressional Republicans. In the July 22 RealClearPolitics average of national generic congressional vote polling, Democrats lead by 3 percentage points. To put this into historical context, we can look back at the earliest generic vote polls in July of the even years before each of the last six congressional elections, Democrats led in all six, yet the subsequent elections were a different story. Democrats lost either House or Senate seats in five of those elections. Looking more closely at today, the Democrats' average lead in likely voter generic polls (Rasmussen and Cygnal) — again the ones who matter most — Democrats' average lead is just 2.5 percentage points. A lot has changed in eight years. back in 2017, Trump's 2016 presidential victory was still being dismissed by some — including some Republicans — as a fluke, a factor of Hillary Clinton's weakness more than his strength. Not so much this time. Trump's 2024 victory was decisive and even quite impressive, considering the obstacles he faced — including but not limited to Democrats' lawfare, two assassination attempts and a concertedly negative establishment media. In office, Trump looked less in control, especially early on. Congressional Republicans reflected this and appeared to be in disarray, as exemplified by their failed efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare. The results reflected this — particularly their loss of 42 House seats in 2018. Of course, there are caveats about projecting too much from such an early look ahead to 2026. Today's generic numbers come from a much more greater number of polls than had been taken in some of those six previous elections. Republicans' numbers could yet slide. But they could also improve. Trump's approval ratings could slide too. But the same upside potential applies here as well. Invariably, there will be more polling of likely voters as the 2026 election nears — again, the ones that count (or rather, vote) — among whom Trump has historically outperformed among them. Many new issues will arise in the year and a half before 2026's midterms. Yet none may be larger than the negative one on Democrats' horizon: Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani's nomination as their candidate for mayor of New York City. Should Mamdani win, he will draw attention away from Trump and onto a set of controversial policies and positions that many Americans view as extreme. He will also exacerbate fissures among Democrats. Although Trump is divisive, he is not dividing his base. And Trump's base is far bigger than it was eight years ago. Democrats are not capitalizing on Trump's divisiveness. They remain leaderless and look more divided than Republicans. J.T. Young is the author of the recent book, 'Unprecedented Assault: How Big Government Unleashed America's Socialist Left' from RealClear Publishing and has over three decades' experience working in Congress, the Department of Treasury, the Office of Management, and Budget, and representing a Fortune 20 company.


Washington Post
6 minutes ago
- Washington Post
Why Americans love conspiracy theories
It's been weeks since the Jeffrey Epstein saga returned to dominate our political discourse. This is unusual. Trump scandals typically have short half-lives, burning bright before fading into the background noise of American politics. Yet here we are, still parsing documents and connections with the kind of dedicated attention usually reserved for major legislative battles that actually impact people's lives. There's something about conspiracy theories — and the Epstein story is nothing if not conspiratorial — that captures our imagination in ways that policy debates rarely can.


Washington Post
6 minutes ago
- Washington Post
Militant George Abdallah arrives in Lebanon after more than 40 years in French detention
BEIRUT — A Lebanese pro-Palestinian communist militant arrived in Lebanon Friday following his release after more than 40 years in detention in France. Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, 74, was serving a life sentence for complicity in the murders of two diplomats, one American and one Israeli, in Paris in 1982. The Paris Court of Appeal ruled last week that Abdallah, who has been imprisoned in France since his arrest in 1984, could be released on the condition that he leave the country and never return. Abdallah was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1987 for complicity in the assassinations of U.S. Army Lt. Col. Charles Ray, who was stationed in Paris as an assistant military attaché, and Israeli diplomat Yacov Barsimantov. He became eligible for parole in 1999 but multiple requests he filed since then were denied.