A Rapid Support Forces commander known as “the butcher of El Fasher” is reportedly out of prison and back in combat, boosting morale among rebel forces and spreading fear among survivors.

Flag of the Rapid Support Forces
(MartinKassemJ120, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons)

The RSF detained Brigadier General al-Fateh Abdullah Idris, known as Abu Lulu, after multiple social media videos showed him committing atrocities against unarmed civilians in the fallout from last year’s battle for El Fasher.

The trauma inflicted by Abu Lulu and others demonstrates how citizens pay the heaviest price of Sudan’s civil war.

Neither of the warring sides offers protection or help, and aid workers cannot reach starving communities. John of Greater Reach Alliance explains, “There are no safe corridors for humanitarian aid access inside Sudan right now.”

If Sudanese people cross into a neighboring country, they still struggle to find food, clean water, and shelter. “This is not only in refugee camps, but in Sudan itself, because basic infrastructure has been destroyed,” John says.

“Water systems, electricity – all the things that make up a functioning civil society have been destroyed.”

Hope amid loss

Sudan’s civil war began in April 2023. Since then, at least 59,000 people have lost their lives, and 30 million Sudanese require support to survive.

Church planters supported by GRA offer biblical trauma healing and targeted relief aid. “There’s only one source of healing that we can offer them, and it is the Gospel,” John says.

In dozens of locations, GRA teams encounter Sudanese refugees and displaced families who are desperate for hope. “People are deeply, deeply exhausted, and they’re living under constant fear,” John says.

“They carry such deep trauma from the loss of family, of home, and dignity. This trauma is shaping their daily lives and how they view the future.”

Even in places marked by fear, loss, and displacement, the Lord is drawing people to Himself and bringing His peace.
(Photo, caption courtesy of Greater Reach Alliance)

More than 300 graduates from GRA’s school of mission and 28 church-planting teams are serving Sudanese people in refugee camps in three countries. During every encounter, believers offer the compassion of Christ.

John says the response to believers’ kindness often goes something like this: “We’ve been told Christians were evil. How can you love us like this? We’ve been taught to hate you.”

How to help

UNHCR’s 2026 appeal describes Sudan’s war as the world’s largest displacement, humanitarian, and protection crisis. While humanitarians struggle to raise the funding needed to address needs en masse, you can help Sudanese people directly through GRA.

Your gifts enable Gospel workers to meet physical and spiritual needs. Although it’s primarily a church-planting ministry, GRA’s targeted relief efforts include food, shelter, and medicine as the Lord provides.

“God has miraculously opened the door for us. Even though these ministries weren’t our wheelhouse, God has said, ‘Yes, I’ll be with you,’ and He is,” John says.

“Pray that God would bring into our hands the means to provide food and shelter. We’ve done that many times,” he continues.

“The shelter is a tarp over their head, because that’s all we had, but they’re sitting in the middle of the sun in some of these areas – that’s 110 degrees.”

Pray that the Sudanese people will surrender their lives to Jesus as they encounter Him through the GRA teams. Pray they will accept the Gospel as truth.

“We’ve had our tragedies, and there will be tragedies to come. How do we as Christians get through them? It’s because the Gospel is true,” John says.

Header image is an AI photo generated by ChatGPT. 

Three years later, Sudan’s leadership remains in flux as the civil war rages on, but one constant remains: Islam is the national religion. Persecution continues as Islamists have targeted and killed Christians and attacked churches.

In refugee camps in countries surrounding Sudan, believers can share the Gospel without fear of the government.

John of Greater Reach Alliance adds, “We have (Bible) translation in 13 unreached people group languages, and each one is led by a graduate from our school of mission.”

Romans 8:28

Problems arise from time to time. “The reality is that Muslims are refugees. They’re fleeing the same war that Christians flee,” John says.

Sudanese refugees who have fled the conflict in Sudan register for food aid in neighboring Chad.
(Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

“They’ve never been in a situation where Islam didn’t dominate and control everything, and so they try to recreate that dominance of Islam in the refugee camps.”

Yet the Lord works every hardship to the good of those who follow Him. John says, “In one camp, where [we planted a church], they shot one of our leaders. The community itself, mostly Muslims, said to the violent Muslims, ‘No more, no more!’”

When the time came to elect a new Community Leader, Muslims chose the church’s pastor.

“They said, ‘We want you because you’re fair and because you’ve brought people who have loved us,’” John says.

Attracted by the love of Christ, Muslims who show interest in the Bible begin studies with Gospel workers trained by GRA. Scriptures translated into minority languages by church-centric Bible translators make this possible.

Remaining work

Sudan has over 100 languages, with Sudanese Arabic dominating nationally but a wide mix of indigenous languages spoken locally. With the help of unfoldingWord, GRA translation teams have completed Open Bible Stories in 15 languages.

(Photo courtesy of unfoldingWord)

The New Testament in Sudanese Arabic has been completed, and the Old Testament will be near completion this year. GRA translators will finish the Masalit New Testament early next year.

Pray for wisdom as believers live out the Gospel in refugee camps.

“We have 106 translators. They’re all from a Muslim background. They are living out that biblical worldview in the context of removing the chains of Islam,” John says.

Header image depicts Sudanese refugees. Photo courtesy DFID – UK Department for International Development, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.

Fighting shows no signs of slowing down as a third faction rises to rule. John of Greater Reach Alliance says, “There’s a strong influence from the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Muslim Brotherhood is seeking to take over through the army.”

Recently designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S., the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood could seek to capitalize on an opportunity. Fractures within the army led to restructuring last week.

(Representative AI photo created with ChatGPT)

“Because of this, coordination within the army is weakened, making it harder to effectively fight the RSF,” John says.

“Our team on the ground thinks it’s more likely to make the war longer than shorter.”

Hundreds of thousands of people have died since the civil war began. Millions are living in displacement camps. One in three Sudanese people needs humanitarian aid to survive.

RSF rule does not promise a brighter future. “If the RSF gains control, there’s a great fear of increased violence,” John says.

“They enacted, on behalf of the previous administration, genocide against black Sudanese tribes in Darfur and the Nuba mountains.”

Hope and help

With the help of Greater Reach Alliance, Sudanese Christians are sharing the hope of Jesus in displacement camps. Read more here.

Ask the Lord to give believers strength. Pray that the war will end soon.

“The best hope is strong international pressure for a return to the civilian leadership that was intended after Bashir was removed,” John says.

(Representative AI photo created with ChatGPT)

“They (civilian leaders) are still in the country. But it would take a very strong international intervention to make a restoration of civilian government possible,” he continues, requesting prayer for Western involvement.

“A return to some kind of civilian leadership is really the answer, because if either side of this conflict wins, the picture for Sudan continues to be extremely bleak.”

Header image depicts a Sudanese combatant with G3 rifle. Steve Evans, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.

Sudan’s civil war, which erupted on April 15, 2023, is a violent power struggle between the national army and the Rapid Support Forces. Civilian deaths continue amid ongoing drone attacks, Radio Dabanga reports, and “the humanitarian situation there is rapidly deteriorating” as fighting blocks aid access.

Strikes also continue throughout Darfur State as the war rages on. Tens of thousands of people were executed in El Fasher, Darfur, in December and January. At least 6,000 people were slain in just three days.

John* partners with dozens of Sudanese church planters. “Many of them are from Darfur,” he says.

“The statistics are not statistics to them; they’re losing family, friends, and property. In the middle of that loss, they’re trusting God.”

Masalit tribal dancers at a 2014 event in Darfur, Sudan.
(Photo courtesy UNAMID via Flickr/CC)

Believers are not only trusting God but also continuing to serve Him. In the refugee camps they now call home, “Where the dominant tribe [in the camp] is Masalit from Darfur, with the greatest persecution and death, there are Masalit house churches,” John says.

“We’ve started literacy classes so they can learn to read and write their own language.”

With the help of Greater Reach Alliance, believers are making Christ known among the Masalit. Consider supporting church planters through GRA here.

“We started in 2018 with the first known two believers from the Masalit tribe,” John says.

“We’ve now graduated [28] from our school, and we have 15 [leaders] involved in (Bible) translation in their language. Our Masalit team translated The JESUS Film and Magdalena film for women.”

Fourteen graduates from GRA’s school of mission lost family and close friends in the massacre at the end of 2025. Pray they will experience the peace only Jesus can offer.

*Pseudonym

Header image is a representative AI photo created by Chat GPT. 

Sudan’s civil war started three years ago, with strong evidence of genocidal violence in Darfur, but few in the West pay attention.

“There’s genocide after genocide, and oftentimes it doesn’t make the news because there’s other conflicts that are more germane to United States politics,” Jesse Griffin of unfoldingWord says.

Sudan faces one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with war, famine, and economic collapse all overlapping. There’s no clear path to peace, and violence is intensifying rather than slowing.

Yet hope remains. “The Gospel continues to expand in Sudan, and it’s wonderful to see how the Holy Spirit is still at work,” Griffin says.

“Our brothers in Sudan will say that, because of the conflict, there’s a huge receptivity to the Gospel.”

Refugee camps become ministry centers

The Lord is working through Sudanese church planters who partner with unfoldingWord to do Bible translation.

“Our partners at Greater Reach Alliance have trained people from 89 different tribes in Sudan,” Griffin says. “These people are going back to their communities and sharing the Gospel, starting churches, and making disciples.”

Using the Scriptures they’ve completed, translators eagerly share the Gospel in their language communities.

“They have adopted a method that integrates translation into the life of the church and their ministry,” Griffin says.

“On a weekly basis, they are not only understanding Scripture, translating it, applying it, but they’re also ministering it in their church context, and they’re proclaiming it in the refugee camps.” 

Translators press on

(Photo courtesy unfoldingWord)

Teams are completing the New Testament in Sudanese Arabic and Masalit this year. Sudanese Arabic teams will finish work on the Old Testament in 2027. Support these efforts through unfoldingWord here.

“Because we have empowered the people to do it (Bible translation) themselves and they don’t need outside help to do the work, it’s actually progressed in spite of the war,” Griffin says.

“It (translation) doesn’t have to be a long, drawn-out, seven-or-10-year process. They’re actually using Scripture as they work on it.”

Many Muslims are turning to Christ after hearing the Gospel in their heart language.

“Pray for their protection because many of them, [as] soon as they make that decision, their lives are in jeopardy from those closest to them,” Griffin requests.

Header and story images courtesy of unfoldingWord.