Sudan (MNN) — Sudan’s crisis is deepening day by day. More than 640,000 children under the age of five are now at risk of cholera.
A Gospel worker we’ll call John explains: “It’s a multisector emergency because you have flooding that displaces people, armed conflict, no access to basic services, and one of the most significant cholera outbreaks that part of the world has seen in decades.”
The ongoing civil war has displaced over 10 million people within Sudan, surpassing displacement figures seen at the height of the conflicts in Syria or Ukraine. At least 18 million Sudanese face acute hunger, with aid agencies warning of famine-like conditions.
Hope amid hardship
Families are eating leaves to survive in parts of Darfur, while hospitals in Khartoum have been bombed or shut down due to fighting.
(Photo courtesy of Kamal IG/Pexels)
“In the middle of that, how do you get help to [people in need]? Delivering aid is incredibly dangerous. Any movement of aid is looted and confiscated,” John says. “They (warring parties) attack, loot, and kidnap aid workers.”
By God’s grace, help is on the way. “In the next couple of weeks, four teams are going into four refugee areas on South Sudan’s border with Sudan, with medications for children to address cholera,” John says.
“Cholera is easily dealt with if you have what you need.”
Thanks to a partnership with aid organizations in the US, “we just received [9 pallets of] medications focused on children,” he adds.
Of the 14 million people currently displaced in and around Sudan, “50 percent of them are children, and 27 percent are children five and under.”
Find your place in the story
Malnutrition and unsanitary conditions in displacement camps significantly increase the risk of infection for young children. In response, small teams of doctors, nurses, and evangelists are mobilizing to bring medicine, compassion, and the hope of the Gospel to those in need.
Pray for God’s protection over these teams as they travel through dangerous territory. Ask the Lord to help them reach the sick in time.
“It’s an incredible blessing not just to sit and look at the problem, but to see God miraculously place in our hands what we can do to help,” John says, “not only with the Gospel, but to help those who are suffering.”
Header graphic courtesy of Spoken Worldwide.
