Hook

You don’t actually care about dead Sudanese children.

That’s the ugly truth you won’t admit over morning coffee or Instagram scrolling. But deep down, beyond your clicktivism and fleeting ‘thoughts and prayers’ posts, there’s a cold indifference.

Conflict

Last week, a hospital in Sudan was bombed. More than 40 civilians were slaughtered where they’d sought hope and safety. The World Health Organization reported it. Mainstream media offered a gentle sigh, ‘tragedy in Africa.’ Then everyone moved on—except the families with torn bodies in their arms.

But here’s the blazing hypocrisy: swap ‘Sudanese’ for ‘Ukrainian’ or ‘Israeli’ and the sky darkens with outrage, hashtags multiply, and world leaders thunder for justice. Your heart breaks, your wallet opens. When the West bleeds, it’s a crisis; when Black bodies are ground to pulp in a dusty African hospital, it’s a footnote. Why? Because compassion is racistly rationed. Because we still believe, in some rotten corner of our souls, that some lives matter less.

Fuel

The soul-numbing apathy isn’t just about Sudan. It’s a global hierarchy of suffering. The U.S. Congress votes billions for wars and humanitarian aid—when the victims look familiar. In Sudan, international newsrooms send interns, not correspondents. Diplomatic statements are sanitized, guilt-free. The Surgeon General won’t tweet about it. Even NGOs know: some disasters don’t bring in donations, so why linger?

It’s not complexity. It’s not fatigue. It’s that the world only values innocent life when it fits a convenient moral narrative. Hospitals burning in Sudan? The world shrugs: ‘That’s Africa, it happens.’ Never mind that every flayed child, every howling mother, deserves the same ferocious empathy we bestow elsewhere. Our selective outrage is nothing short of moral cowardice.

Impact

Ask yourself—would you cry for these victims if their skin were lighter, if they spoke English, if their wars were easier to pronounce? Pretend all you like, but your social feed tells the story. Your government’s ‘values’ are a PR strategy, not a guiding star. Stop believing, stop posting, that we are a compassionate planet. We are spectators of atrocity, obsessed with skin-deep solidarity and comfortable distance.

So look at the smoking rubble of that Sudanese hospital. See the bodies inside. Then, for once, admit it: our compassion is a lie—broken, selective, and unfit for the world we pretend to build.

This article was inspired by the headline: 'WHO says attack on Sudanese hospital killed more than 40 civilians'.