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. 

He shares one story of an 18-year-old Sudanese woman who found Christ.

“We have translation ministries in 13 unreached people group languages, and each one is led by a graduate from our school of mission. And so one of the leaders–first believer in his tribe—his sister found his Bible and secretly began to read it and, through several months, on her own, made a decision to follow Christ.”

When the young woman’s family found out, she was beaten, locked in the house without a phone, and told if she did not recant her new faith, she would be disowned by the family and possibly killed. She managed to get out of the house and went to a church pastored by another leader from the same ministry as her brother. From there, a partner ministry, Samaritan’s Purse, was able to get her to safety.

“Our team sat down with her and said, ‘We really want you to think about this decision and the consequences, because it is life and death.’ They were very serious and wanted to make sure she knew what she was doing, and she said, ‘Now that I know God, they can take my life. I will not turn back.’”

She is currently living with female students of the ministry’s school of mission and taking Bible classes.

The ministry John serves continues to see persecution. Indigenous Gospel workers have been shot and had their small businesses destroyed—“And it just goes on after that,” he says. “But in the context of that, there are baptisms in the face of persecution, because the Spirit of God is moving.”

According to John, Muslims who are also fleeing from the war are taking note that it is often Christians who are bringing food and medical help, listening to survivors, and offering hope. In one refugee camp where a Gospel worker was previously shot, a ministry leader and Christian convert has since been elected as the community leader.

“They said, ‘We want you, because you’re fair and because, although they’re different than us, you’ve brought people who have loved us.’ So God is doing amazing things.”

Continue to pray for the safety of Gospel workers in Sudan and for the work the Holy Spirit is doing there.

Header photo by Mohamed Zekry via Pexels

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. 

Fighting between rebel forces and the Sudanese army has killed more than 40,000 people since 2023 and forced nearly 15 million people to flee their homes. Yesterday, rebel forces launched a drone strike that killed 17 people – most of them girls. Drone warfare adds a dangerous dynamic to the conflict.

(Student News Agency, Attribution, via Wikimedia Commons)

Plus, Sudan’s war has become a proxy conflict for nations like Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the U.S. As described here, Sudan is a critical geopolitical playing field for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The UAE reportedly supports rebel forces, while Saudi Arabia increasingly backs Sudan’s military.

At the same time, the U.S. targets Iranian-backed militia in Sudan, applying pressure to Sudan’s army. The Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood is reportedly a significant supporter of the Sudanese Armed Forces, which called for a terrorist designation of rebel forces on Monday.

Though the war drags on, the Lord is at work amid death and despair. Church planters active in Sudan “are discovering new depths of faith and strength, and it’s a wonderful thing to see,” says John, a Gospel worker whose organization we cannot name for security purposes.

“Even though we weep with them, God is sufficient. As we walk through this war, we are seeing how sufficient God is.”

God works amid war

John’s organization operates a school of mission, which prepares new believers to make disciples in Sudan and surrounding nations.

“We’ve graduated 322 Muslim-background believers from Sudan from 89 tribes,” John says.

Plus, church planters are working with unreached people groups in 13 refugee camps. In their context, persecution and spiritual harvest go hand in hand. “The reality is they go together; we don’t find them separated in any way,” John says.

(Photo courtesy of Spoken Worldwide)

“In just two months’ time, we’ve had attempts on the [lives] of two of our leaders. One of our leaders was shot,” he continues.

Simultaneously, “there are baptisms in the face of persecution, because the Spirit of God is moving.”

How to help

Church planters risk their lives daily to share Jesus in Muslim-majority Sudan. Will you partner with them?

“Prayer is the mobilization of all that God does,” John says. “Just write Sudan somewhere, and you can say, ‘God, I was reminded of Sudan. Will You be with these precious people?’”

Use the prayer prompts listed alongside this article to guide your intercession. You can also donate to John’s organization here to ensure church planters have the resources they need to keep working.

Header image is a representative AI photo generated by ChatGPT.

Christians from Kasr El-Dobara Evangelical Church (KDEC) in Egypt say it looks like this: a journey from fear, to hope, to overcoming barriers, and then to living in strength. Sounds clear cut, but the process takes years of receiving Christ’s love and practical care. 

Marihan with KDEC says that on this journey with refugees, “One of the ways we find very helpful is not just to feed them, but to equip them.” 

The church equips women in particular through a vocational training center, in partnership with another congregation in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. They have started not only this vocational center but also a school for children. (More on the school here.)

“We are teaching them small skills — sewing skills, macrame skills, how to do like a fashion thing or any handmade work, so they can have income,” says Marihan. “After some time, we can teach them as well how to start their own business, their own shop, their own whatever, so they can have sustainable income.”

(Photo courtesy of KDEC)

Egypt hosts more than 1 million refugees, according to December 2025 data from the United Nations Refugee Agency. Many come from Sudan and Syria. Even before families and individuals realize they aren’t going home anytime soon, they face serious barriers “with the language, with culture, with the identity itself, with everything around them,” says Marihan, “even with the people who sometimes treat them as if [the refugees] are the enemy, [as if] they are taking their food.”

Marihan says it might take three to five years for refugees to begin to thrive. “It depends on the person himself — and the situation in their country, by the way. If the situation in their country is going bad every day, it affects them.”

But showing the love of Christ opens the way to share His message. Please pray for God’s blessing and strength for believers in Egypt engaged in loving and caring for displaced families. 

“Pray for the grace that God is giving us with the government to continue. We got permission from the government to establish the education center and to serve those people,” Marihan explains. 

Header photo courtesy of Wadi Lissa via Unsplash.

The UN says two-thirds of Sudan’s population will need help to survive another year. Children are disproportionately affected, with 55 percent of displaced people being under the age of 18.

Hope remains for Sudan, but not because the government says that 2026 will be a “year of peace.” Instead, a different source offers a more optimistic outlook.

“God is at work in our fallen world,” says a Gospel worker we’ll call John.

“He is not silent, not powerless. He is bringing people to Himself in the worst of times.”

Help for the hopeless

Sudanese church planters and medical teams bring donated medicines to displacement camps in Sudan and South Sudan. More about that here.

“The last bit of medicine that we had in this second shipment went to an orphanage outside of Juba,” John says.

Sudan refugees
(Representative AI photo created by ChatGPT)

More than 900 children call the facility home, and “this orphanage encapsulates what’s happening everywhere we go,” John says.

“About 15 percent of the children are suffering from what they call night blindness, and it is caused most times by an extreme deficiency of vitamin A,” he continues.

“The children were covered with sores and lesions from malnutrition and poor hygiene.”

“Critical edge of death”

Famine is widespread in Sudan as a result of the war. Children at the orphanage only get “one meal a day, and it is a small thing of beans and cornmeal. Because they’re not getting iron, there is a large, large percentage with anemia,” John says.

You can help by supporting Sudanese church planters through John’s organization.

“We’ve decided to do a four-month effort and then see what God does. So, we’re going to provide meat for those 907 children every week, and multiple vitamins for each one of them,” John says.

“We’re purchasing some of the protein meals that the UN uses to get these children under five away from that critical edge of death.”

As the children received medical care through the latest outreach, they heard about a God who loves them. Pray that these Gospel seeds will take root.

“Anyone who gets involved with the suffering of displaced people in the world is up for a great blessing,” John says.

Header and story images are representative AI photos generated by ChatGPT. 

Rafat Samir, General Secretary of the Sudan Evangelical Alliance and an Open Doors spokesperson, says, “Even myself and many Christians have been detained and sent to court many times as enemies against the state.”

One recent case involves Dr. Yagoub Jibril Glademea, who was detained for his faith. On December 7, he went to the state Civil Registration office to obtain a national number for his niece. A security officer noticed the religious designation on his ID and detained him for interrogation. His family was denied access for three days before he was released. It’s a reality many Sudanese believers face — being treated as enemies because of their faith.

But why this label of “enemy”?

Photo courtesy of Faruk Tokluoglu via Pexels

“Both parties of the war do not like the church and do not want the Christian in the places they are ruling,” Samir explains.

Christians are often labeled traitors — seen as allies of the other side. They’re also frequently missed when humanitarian aid is distributed. Since the government chooses which NGOs can work, access for believers is often barred.

“They close the Christian schools and Christian hospitals. They kick the missionaries outside the country,” says Samir. 

When Christians flee, they face anger from local communities.  “Even in the safe areas where the Christians have been settled after this war, they face a lot of persecution because they are unwanted in those areas.”

On top of that, for many people the very idea of having a church is impossible. In many places, they aren’t allowed to build worship spaces or hold services, because local communities don’t want any churches in these new areas.

This year, dedicate your prayers for Sudanese people. Samir says, “I always believe in what Jesus said: This gates of hell will not conquer the church. This is His church, and He preserves it.”

Pray for detained Sudanese pastors. Pray also for the strength of believers to endure the trials they face.

Header photo courtesy of Michael Starkie/Unsplash.