Church leaders warned of a neglected humanitarian crisis in Sudan, with international attention fixed on conflicts elsewhere.
The violence in Sudan worsened in September, as warring factions fought for control of Khartoum and of the North Darfur region. The Sudanese Armed Forces, led by General Abdel-Fattah Burhan, have been fighting the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces under Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo (alias Hemedti) since April 2023.
Both sides face accusations of grave human rights abuses – targeting civilian homes, hospitals and places of worship – and have been reported using mass starvation as a weapon of war.
Fr John Gbemboyo Joseph Mbikoyezu, the coordinator of the Sudan Catholic Bishops Conference, told The Tablet that the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine meant the wider world did not acknowledge these crimes.
“I think it’s due to the nature of the conflict that there is little media attention,” he said. “All the attention appears to be on what is happening in Palestine.”
More than 10 million people have been displaced by the conflict, with 2.2 million forced to flee to neighbouring countries. Aid agencies have reported outbreaks of serious disease among displaced people, including cholera, malaria and measles.
Massive floods in the region also affected at least 124,000 people. Up to 150,000 people are estimated to have died from the conflict and its effects.
Fr Mbikoyezu said many people, including South Sudanese refugees who have fled to Sudan from conflict in their own country, were trapped by the war, unable to afford the costs of departure.
“They will need to pay to leave, but they do not have the resources. They need care, but the last missionaries were told to evacuate. They are now [held] in a small area, where they can’t move,” he said.
Sudanese bishops warned in July there was “no clue to the light of peace [and] dialogue that could bring hope to the people of Sudan”. They said the generals alone were not responsible for the war, which was driven by wealthy elites, cartels and international interests.
In the UK, Bishop Paul Swarbrick of Lancaster said the war had “created a humanitarian catastrophe that can no longer be ignored”.
Swarbrick, the lead for Africa for the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, said “the tragedy in Sudan receives less attention from world media than other conflicts around the world even though the violence and suffering is colossal”.
He suggested that “this is perhaps because it is considered less likely to escalate beyond the region and less likely to affect the global security situation … however, the suffering of so many millions should be considered a global tragedy”.
Swarbrick backed Cafod’s Sudan Crisis Appeal, saying that “by uniting in prayer and raising awareness of the war in Sudan within our communities and to our political authorities, we can all do our bit to help, to restore hope to those currently enduring unimaginable hardships”.
In South Sudan, the Church warned that strains on aid were causing widespread suffering. Bishop Eduardo Hiiboro Kussala of Tombura-Yambio The Tablet that civil servants were left unpaid while “many parts of South Sudan depend on humanitarian assistance, but there has been a reduction in humanitarian aid from humanitarian agencies and this is very serious”.
Speaking in Rome last week at the assembly for the Synod on Synodality, Cardinal Stephen Ameyu Martin Mulla of Juba said independence had failed to remedy South Sudan’s problems.
He said tensions between the more than 60 major ethnic groups in South Sudan had not improved since it was founded on 9 July 2011, under the terms of the 2005 agreement to end to Sudanese civil war.
“We got this independence from Sudan. We thought that we were going to solve our problems. But it seems that problems have increased,” the cardinal said.
Several peace agreements have failed to resolve a conflict between President Salva Kiir and his former vice-president Riek Machar which broke out in 2013. Cardinal Ameyu described persistent instability, corruption, and the mismanagement of resources amid the fighting.
“In South Sudan, we still have outlining issues of the revitalised peace agreement, which, in a way, the leadership in South Sudan is unable to implement to the letter,” he said.
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