Samaritan’s Purse is bringing food and medicine as tens of thousands of displaced families face starvation amid Sudan’s civil war. Please pray. The need is great.
Dr. Rodgers, a Kenyan reproductive health doctor, has been serving at a Samaritan’s Purse partner hospital in southern Sudan for nearly two years. The hospital is on the front line of a battle against malnutrition and traumatic injuries as civil war rages on.
He’ll never forget his first case at Katcha Hospital: a boy shot in the stomach by a ricocheted bullet rushed to the hospital’s gates on a donkey cart at 2 a.m.
Because the hospital had an operating room and the ability to conduct blood transfusions, the boy survived.
Dr. Rodgers serves with Samaritan’s Purse in the remote regions of southern Sudan as one of only two doctors at Katcha Hospital, showing God’s love to the sick and weary who have been displaced by war.
“If this facility was not here, and if Samaritan’s Purse didn’t help supply this facility, that would have been another life lost,” he said. The next closest facility was a 6-hour drive, and the boy would’ve quickly bled out if it weren’t for Samaritan’s Purse.
Dr. Rodgers finds his God-given purpose within the halls of Katcha Hospital as he serves patients in Jesus’ Name.
Nearly 60,000 patients have been treated at Katcha since late 2024 in an area that has swelled in population to more than 800,000 people. A majority of patients have been treated for war wounds, malnutrition, and complications from malaria. Over 4,000 children have been fully vaccinated. An average of 20 healthy babies are delivered each month. Over just the last 18 months, the surgical staff have successfully performed 451 procedures.
“God sent us here for a purpose.”
Through the Samaritan’s Purse partnership started last year with Katcha Hospital, the facility has grown into a fully operational medical center that includes a stocked pharmacy, inpatient wards, and an operating room. We’ve provided supplies and tools to perform life-saving surgeries, including caesarean section procedures and surgeries treating war-related trauma. Recently, we equipped the hospital to perform blood transfusions.
Samaritan’s Purse also helped staff the hospital with qualified doctors and nurses to establish a standard of care and train Katcha’s medical staff.
In late 2024, Samaritan’s Purse revitalized and equipped Katcha Hospital so that the facility could treat the influx of sick and weary people flooding into the region.
“The patients may not know that Samaritan’s Purse is here, but our presence on the ground matters to them because people have nowhere to go,” Dr. Rodgers said. “And God sent us here for a purpose: to be there for them, to attend to them, and give them the best that we can. That is what drives me.”
Food Arrives But Starvation Is Real
As April 15 marks three years since the start of the war in Sudan, the work of Samaritan’s Purse continues. Starvation and malnutrition are a growing epidemic in the region.
“This is the greatest humanitarian crisis in the world. This is a place where hunger is present almost everywhere,” said Dave Philips, deputy director of international projects with Samaritan’s Purse, noting that famine has struck the region twice in the last 18 months. “Samaritan’s Purse is coming here to provide critically needed items—interventions that are life-saving.”
In a recent visit to southern Sudan, Philips shares the Gospel to hundreds of displaced people at a camp where we distribute food and provide basic medical services. Several people raise their hands to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
Among other relief items such as shelter supplies and simple medicine, we will soon deliver over 14,000 tons of food to help feed hundreds of thousands of displaced families. To combat malnutrition, Samaritan’s Purse also has trucked nearly 500 tons of ready-to-use, nutrient-packed food to distribute to children and their mothers this coming lean season when food is especially scarce. Each bundle of food includes corn, oil, beans, and salt, enough of each to sustain a family for several months. This could be some of the only food these families will receive this summer.
“We want them to know that God loves them,” Philips said. “He hasn’t forgotten them in the midst of this crisis.”
Children feed on packs of nutrient-dense food provided by Samaritan’s Purse at a displacement camp in Sudan.
Food and Medical Care Are Saving Thousands of Lives
Malnutrition daily threatens the lives of these displaced families.
A woman named Toma had walked from sunup to sundown to bring her 9-year-old grandson, Ahmed, to Katcha Hospital to save his life.
“We left because there was no food. There were only lots of shooting and bombs,” she said. “We had to leave.”
Toma, right, and her grandson, Ahmed, are seen by Dr. Rodgers as our staff nurture the little boy back to full health.
Without intervention Ahmed had only days to live.
The boy’s face, limbs, and stomach swelled as fluid began to fill surrounding tissue—a hallmark sign of severe malnutrition. His skin had developed a rash. His hair was brittle and falling out. He had an agonizing cough deep from his lungs.
His organs were failing, and Ahmed was in danger of becoming yet another casualty of the, now, three-year war wrecking his homeland.
When Toma arrived at Katcha Hospital with her emaciated grandson, Samaritan’s Purse medical teams got to work.
By measuring the upper arm, our trained staff can assess malnutrition and respond accordingly with doses of supplemental food. Ahmed’s arm measured in the red, meaning he suffers from severe acute malnutrition.
Ahmed was rushed into the stabilization ward where he was hydrated and placed on a multi-day regimen of therapeutic food in the form of milk formula. He also received antibiotics to fight back any lingering infections.
It took two weeks for Ahmed’s swelling to subside and for the little boy to start talking again. Soon he will be able to leave the hospital and receive ongoing care from the Samaritan’s Purse team. They will continue to monitor his condition while also providing proper nutrition for the grandmother and child.
Toma says she’s gone from crisis and grief-stricken fear to thinking about Ahmed’s future.
“I appreciate the improvement I’ve seen in my grandson—I am very grateful,” Toma said. “After we are discharged, I hope we can settle down and Ahmed can go to school.”
Miracles Born in Chaos
In the women’s ward are “miracles born in chaos,” as Dr. Rodgers describes them. The coos and cries of healthy newborns bring joy to a place surrounded by the pain of war.
One mother delivered a baby safely after initial complications due to heightened blood pressure; another woman nearby was being treated for a ruptured appendix. In the corner bed, an older woman was admitted for heart failure caused by severe malnutrition and dehydration. A blood transfusion saved her life.
“These patients come when they are severely wasted. They have only eaten grass and wild foods from the road,” said Mercy Njoki, a Samaritan’s Purse medical professional and nurse manager at the hospital. “They come with nothing, hoping to get something. The good work of Samaritan’s Purse has gone out to the far areas. We are making a change—we are making an impact—and we would like to continue doing so.”
Mercy asks for prayer as she and her team work tirelessly in Sudan. “We daily work in very harsh conditions, so please pray for God to strengthen us,” she said.
Among the women in the ward, Rawya lay on her side with her swaddled 4-day-old son, Hassen.
“I gave up. I thought my child was dead,” she said, thinking back over the days before arriving at the hospital. “Then I worried about myself, too. I thought I was going to die.”
The first-time mother had been in labor for four days—traveling seven hours on a jam-packed taxi truck. She arrived, weary and hopeless, in the middle of the night.
After an arduous journey and fearing for her life, Rawya can rest at Katcha Hospital knowing her baby boy is alive and healthy.
To her surprise, Dr. Rodgers and his team were ready. They performed an emergency C-section to save her life and delivered her first baby boy into the world.
“I thank God that I reached the hospital,” she said.
As war enters its fourth year this month, pray for the work of Samaritan’s Purse as we continue to meet the needs of those suffering in Sudan. Jesus says that what we do “to one of the least of these…you did it to Me” (Matthew 25:40). Pray also that the Lord would cover each mother and their newborns at Katcha Hospital—and the many thousands displaced and hungry across Sudan—with love and peace as we bring help in Jesus’ Name.
