As Samaritan's Purse rushes critical aid to the war-torn nation, thousands of displaced families are gaining hope for a better future amid uncertainty.
Each morning, long before daybreak, Nadia* would travel to the local market to sell tea and coffee to bleary-eyed residents just waking up in her town in southern Sudan. She had to rise quite early so she could finish her business before her school started. Though she’s now a mother of three, she was hungry for an education—even if this meant foregoing a little more sleep. She did not want to forfeit her dream of an education, which had been cut short by war when she was a child.
So, Nadia was heartbroken when war struck Sudan again last spring. It felt like her dreams, and those of fellow Sudanese, had been erased, along with any semblance of normalcy she and her family had enjoyed since relative peace came to her country a few years before.
Nadia wishes for a peaceful Sudan, a country crippled by war for decades.
Armed forces began to raid villages and cities across the country in April 2023—even targeting the busy market where she’d sold her tea and coffee to support her family. Her sole means of income had become a dangerous endeavor. The school closed, too.
Paralyzed by fear, Nadia hid out with her family at home, without food or water, serving a sentence of isolation and uncertainty.
Eventually, left with no other choice, Nadia took the risk to flee with her children.
“I decided that I will not remain here and die with my kids in my own home,” Nadia recounted. “I heard of entire families dying [if they tried to escape], but we made it outside the city and into the wilderness.”
For two days they journeyed through the oppressive heat of the dry season with no food and little water. The ever-present threat of armed groups loomed over them the whole way. Finally, they hobbled into a camp of nearly 50,000 displaced people.
The family of four lives with another family in a single-room, straw home while Nadia builds her house nearby. Hospitality and generosity are common in Sudanese culture, even amid disaster.
Relief Arrives
Within days of her arrival, Samaritan’s Purse provided Nadia and thousands of others with bags filled with corn, beans, oil, and salt to sustain her family for a month.
“I am happy to feed my children and for them to not feel hungry,” she said. “When I sleep, I think about how we almost died of hunger and how this food has saved our lives.”
Since war returned to Sudan last year, Samaritan’s Purse has been assisting fleeing families in Kordofan. We’re providing both food and medical care in Jesus’ Name. We’ve also provided clean water sources, along with improved sanitation and hygiene, through freshwater wells and pit latrines to prevent life-threatening waterborne illness.
Our WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene) initiatives will help combat the spread of waterborne illnesses when the rains come.
From April of 2024, Samaritan’s Purse has been moving truck convoys into the area carrying food, nutrient-rich peanut paste specially formulated for small children, and shelter items. So far we have brought more than 4,000 tons of food to the region that will be distributed to those in great need–including mothers and babies.
Our multifaceted response to the crisis in Sudan has helped save tens of thousands of lives.
More Aid Is Needed
We praise God for the thousands who’ve received critical food relief through Samaritan’s Purse, but we continue to pray for the many more people in the country threatened by hunger.
Dara*, a mother of nine children, lives in a camp near Nadia. She lost two of her boys in the chaos when armed forces ransacked her village. She doesn’t know where they are, or if they are alive. “All I do is think about my lost children,” she said with a distant look in her eyes. Her 4-year-old twins, who are with her, face life-threatening malnutrition.
Dara escaped violent conflict in her hometown, but now she and her family face a new challenge in the camp: hunger.
As weary as she is, Dara continues to trust God as her provider. “What keeps me moving is my faith in God. He was able to get me here, maybe He will take me away from here safely and back to my boys.”
Before our convoys arrived in Kordofan, many like Dara and her children were left eating leaves or tree sap.
To gauge malnutrition, a Samaritan’s Purse clinic staff member measures the arm of Dara’s young son. Twenty-three children have died in the camps over the past month.
As the rainy season looms, please pray for our additional convoys, which are in a race against time before roads become impassable. They can help feed hundreds of thousands of people.
Pray for Dara, Nadia, and their families as they face an uncertain future. Pray that God would strengthen the Samaritan’s Purse team on the ground and that the food would arrive to these camps safely and in time. Pray for a lasting peace in Sudan.
*Names changed for security.
We continue to load trucks with food for the starving in Sudan in Jesus’ Name.
