The Christian Post, by Samantha Kamman: Many in Sudan are forced to fight over anthills for food as the country faces one of the worst levels of food insecurity ever recorded, according to the global Evangelical humanitarian organization World Vision.
Edgar Sandoval, president and CEO of World Vision U.S., told The Christian Post in a recent interview that life in Sudan is currently one of fear and chaos as the country faces the harsh realities of civil war and the brink of famine.
In addition to the threat of violence, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification reported that 25.6 million people in Sudan are facing high levels of acute food insecurity, and 8.5 million people are facing emergency food shortages. The IPC also warned about the risk of famine across 14 areas, impacting residents and refugees in areas like Greater Darfur and Greater Kordofan.
The civil war that began in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the government-sponsored paramilitary Rapid Support Forces does not appear to be the sole cause of the famine, however.
World Vision noted last month that Sudan has had below-average precipitation for the third year in a row, resulting in harvest failures.
As the charity has over 190 people working in Sudan to address the food crisis, Sandoval recently visited the Chad-Sudan border to speak with the people fleeing the country.
“I saw a level of despair and hopelessness in the moms and the children that was just beyond anything I’d ever seen,” Sandoval said.
Sandoval met an 8-year-old girl who had lost her family to the raging violence happening in the country. While the girl’s two aunts helped her escape, the girl saw her parents’ deceased bodies. Sandoval said that the girl’s story is “representative” of what children in Sudan are experiencing.
Sandoval also met another mother and her son, who weighed only 26 pounds. He said his heart broke as the mother wept, telling Sandoval that people in her community are fighting each other over anthills because they’re so hungry. She said they’ll eat the millets stored there by the ants.
“And they’re fighting for that as the only source of food,” Sandoval said. “I think that speaks to the level of desperation that the Sudanese people are facing. It’s the situation that children and moms in particular are facing.”
In June, the United Nations Children’s Fund announced that nearly 9 million children in Sudan face acute food insecurity and access to safe drinking water. More than 3,800 children have been killed since the fighting escalated in April 2023, and almost 4 million children under the age of 5 are suffering from acute malnutrition, with 730,000 projected to be at an “imminent risk of dying.”
Over the past year, World Vision has reached more than 1.2 million people, primarily women and children, providing them with emergency assistance, including food and cash assistance, health and nutrition services, water and sanitation and hygiene solutions. In addition to Sudan, the global relief organization works in Chad, South Sudan, Ethiopia and the Central African Republic.
A World Vision representative told CP that the U.N.’s response plan for Sudan calls for $2.7 billion, but only 17.4% has been funded. In April, the U.N. reported that only about 6% of the response plan had been funded.
According to Sandoval, World Vision has been working in Sudan for decades, even before the current food insecurity crisis. He stressed that the organization is adept at addressing people’s needs despite the danger.
World Vision typically partners with local faith communities in Sudan to provide aid and employs several safeguards to ensure the right people receive assistance.
“And in my experience, once American Christians are aware of the need, the level of generosity starts to pour out,” he said, saying more global awareness is needed of the crisis. “Every little bit helps.”
Prophetic Link:
“While appearing to the children of men as a great physician who can heal all their maladies, he will bring disease and disaster, until populous cities are reduced to ruin and desolation. Even now he is at work. In accidents and calamities by sea and by land, in great conflagrations, in fierce tornadoes and terrific hailstorms, in tempests, floods, cyclones, tidal waves, and earthquakes, in every place and in a thousand forms, Satan is exercising his power. He sweeps away the ripening harvest, and famine and distress follow. He imparts to the air a deadly taint, and thousands perish by the pestilence. These visitations are to become more and more frequent and disastrous. Destruction will be upon both man and beast. “The earth mourneth and fadeth away,” “The haughty people … do languish. The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.” Isaiah 24:4, 5.” Great Controversy, 589.3
Comments
William Stroud
Saturday July 27th, 2024 at 12:18 AMThose of us whom God has blessed so abundantly need to do something. We need to help those people who are staving, women and children. One big challenge is getting the resources into the hands of those who need them. People are ruthless and will take the resources and use them for their own personal gain rather than distributing them to the people. World Vision has a reputation of being a trustworthy organization. My the Holy Spirit guide each one of us and encourage us to help in a reasonable and intelligent way.