After 1,000 days of conflict and 13 million people displaced, Sudan is facing the world’s largest humanitarian crisis while much of the world looks away. Tearfund’s Esther Trewinnard says for Christians the question is not just what is happening, but what we are willing to do about it
“Where the cameras go, the funding often follows.” That’s according to my colleague, Erickson Bisetsa, country director at Tearfund. He has rightly been stressing that Christians – especially those working in the media – must not look away from the crisis in Sudan.
After 1,000 days of war, the outlook for the world’s largest humanitarian crisis looks increasingly bleak.
According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, since the start of the war, nearly 13 million people have been driven from their homes. In Sudan alone, many of the 7.2 million people unable to leave the country are living in overcrowded camps or makeshift shelters facing extreme hunger and disease outbreaks. Communities have been cut off from food, clean water and medical care.
An abandoned crisis
Most harrowing of all are the reports of sexual and gender-based violence against women and girls of all ages, leading to a fourfold increase in demand for support services. What limited news coverage we do see coming out of Sudan is the sort that you’d be forgiven for switching radio stations to shield your children from.
That makes Erickson’s report from a recent trip so astounding. He has just returned from visiting communities who were already struggling in the face of extreme poverty and are now stretching their meagre resources to cater for family, friends, refugees and returnees fleeing violence. Listening to the story he tells me next, about a woman my age living across the border from Sudan in the South Sudanese village of Aweil, I ask myself: Would I be capable of such radical hospitality?
At 42, Adut Lual has faced more hardship than most. Widowed during the Covid-19 pandemic, this mother of six in Aweil is a simple farmer, battling the unpredictable elements of seasonal floods and prolonged drought. Year after year, the poor yields leave her family struggling with a persistent lack of food and basic necessities. The family’s food stocks are perpetually low, a constant, gnawing worry.
Yet, three years ago, when the Sudan conflict forced her extended family to flee, Adut didn’t hesitate.
Despite her own family’s deep-seated food insecurity, despite having virtually nothing to spare, Adut’s heart was open. She welcomed over eight relatives who arrived in Aweil with nothing but the clothes on their backs.
What limited news coverage we do see coming out of Sudan is the sort that you’d be forgiven for switching radio stations to shield your children from.
Adut is not just receiving them; she is providing them with the only shelter she has. Her simple home, often short on food for her own children, now stretches to sustain a household of more than a dozen. This profound compassion demonstrates the enduring human spirit: a choice, even amid deep scarcity, to share the little that remains.
Time to act
Tearfund is getting behind local communities, like Adut’s, who are stretching the resources they have to meet the needs of refugees and returnees fleeing a conflict that the international community – Sudan’s global neighbours – have mostly forgotten, neglected or ignored.
There are so many stories across Sudan and South Sudan that illustrate the resilience, hope and extraordinary generosity of ordinary people resolved to love their neighbours. These accounts are at least as common, if not more common, than the horrific violence and brutality that dominate headlines. I ask myself again, if my own neighbours came running, how would I respond? And why are people fleeing conflict in Sudan being treated like they are invisible in this globalised age?
People like Adut are championing the values and actions my faith challenges me to share and uphold. But her resources are not inexhaustible. The longer the conflict goes on, the more vulnerable host communities like hers are to being broken beyond their limits. Tearfund is working with the local church to bring hope, encouragement and life-saving resources to protect grassroots responders not only from hunger, but from burnout and empathy fatigue as well.
Sudan can’t wait. For the second time in less than a year, famine has been confirmed in parts of the country. Famine is likely to spread to at least 20 areas across Darfur and Kordofan regions unless violence stops and aid can get through. This hunger crisis is not inevitable — it is being driven by conflict, the destruction of markets and agriculture, collapsing health services and the obstruction of aid.
This week the ‘Keep Eyes on Sudan’ coalition – a group of leading UK charities including Action Against Hunger, Age International, CARE International UK, CAFOD, Christian Aid, International Rescue Committee, Islamic Relief UK, Plan International UK, Save the Children UK, Tearfund, Oxfam and World Vision – have submitted a petition calling on the UK Government to take concrete action to end suffering in Sudan.
We are calling on the UK Government to:
- Scale up its diplomatic efforts, including through the UN Security Council, to push for an immediate, nationwide ceasefire as the first step towards lasting peace.
- Protect civilians, aid workers and local emergency responders by backing efforts to prevent further attacks, atrocities and International Humanitarian Law violations.
- Secure rapid, safe, sustained humanitarian access across Sudan, especially to conflict-affected and besieged areas, so aid can reach every community in need.
- Increase funding now, especially to local aid groups and women-led organisations, to help stop famine spreading further and provide life-saving assistance and services especially to women and children forced to flee their homes.
- Support a regional response to this crisis, working with neighbouring countries to increase humanitarian assistance to refugees, enable safe cross-border access for humanitarian aid, and prevent the conflict from spreading further.
The UK Government must step up and meet this moment with compassion and action.
The very least we can do as Christians, is to stand with people like Adut, supporting those at the sharp end of this humanitarian catastrophe, whether in prayer, giving or advocating for action. We must not turn away. We must face the grim realities of this forgotten war and keep eyes on Sudan.
For more information visit tearfund.org
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