BY ADAMA DIENG
Across our continent, crises that should shake us to the core risk becoming routine. Sudan remains engulfed in war. Violence and displacement persist elsewhere. In Somalia, hunger once again threatens millions, with children carrying the heaviest burden. Each tragedy competes with the next for attention, as if suffering were becoming an ordinary feature of African life.
We must resist this dangerous drift toward indifference.
Africa does not lack institutions or mechanisms. I have seen, throughout my years serving the United Nations and advocating for justice across the continent, how early warnings are issued, reports drafted, mediators appointed. Yet too often, political will falters at the decisive moment. Prevention is not measured by declarations or communiqués – it is measured by the lives we manage to protect.
As African leaders gather in Luanda to strengthen our conflict prevention architecture, they must confront a simple truth: Crises rarely erupt without warning. The signs are there. Our failure is not one of knowledge, but of action.
Responsibility does not rest with the African Union (AU) alone. Governments, regional organisations, religious and traditional authorities, civil society, intellectuals, business leaders and citizens all share a duty. Silence is never neutral.
Africa must reclaim its moral voice – not outrage that fades with the news cycle, but the kind that compels us to act. War, hunger, displacement and mass atrocities are not inevitable. Prevention begins where indifference ends. And Africa must never be indifferent to the suffering of its own people.
Adama Dieng is African Union (AU) Special Envoy for the Prevention of Genocide and Other Mass Atrocities.
