Transported to Aweil from Abyei in a July truck convoy, along with over 16,000 Sudanese refugees and South Sudanese returnees, a man sits alone. The residents of Bishop Joseph Maner Manot’s host diocese of Wanyjok in Northern Bahr el Ghazal already faced emergency-level malnutrition, particularly among children.
For inspiration, Board member Rick Houghton recommends https://anabaptistworld.org/the-last-pastor-in-blockaded-sudan-city-holds-out-for-remaining-christians/, an August 2025 interview and photo of a youthful-looking Daramali Abujudin, the continuing priest of St. Mathew’s Episcopal Church in the besieged city of El-Fasher, Sudan, along with his wife and three children, gathering Christians under one roof Sundays to avoid the random bombing.
Equally inspiring: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2Q4-nBDGvU , a 30-minute peek at a village of lepers near Rumbek, South Sudan served by lively Irish Roman Catholic missionaries, filmed prior to the 2022 Peace Mission of Pope Francis, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, and Church of Scotland Moderator Ian Greenshields.
Board member Joseph Tucker questions the title “The War about Nothing” which headlines a report, by Anne Applebaum in the September issue of The Atlantic, on her recent visits to Khartoum and the Chad border. Tucker argues, “There’s a case to be made that the war [in Sudan} now is unfortunately about nothing short of the survival and future of the Sudanese state in the most basic sense.” Vivid photos by Lynsey Addario, with Applebaum’s interviews, attest the staggering challenge to the Church’s ministry of reconciliation. Read for yourself at: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/09/sudan-civil-war-humanitarian-crisis/683563/?gift=BP5KposLpSXly1uYEYdDv552bqFppgRPHlc44MeCfis. OR, here’s a 49-minute interview with Applebaum on National Public Radio August 6th: https://www.npr.org/2025/08/06/1256812325/crisis-in-sudan.
Tucker spotted another front-page story online in a major American magazine, Time: https://time.com/7313600/sudan-crisis-shadows-photography. “It’s primarily a photo spread and a focus on the RSF-controlled West Darfur. I’d imagine there’d be more text in the print edition later this month.”