Category: News

Samuel Enosa Peni, the 5th Bishop of Yambio and Archbishop of the Internal Province of Western Equatoria, ECSS, travelled to Washington, DC in early October for a meeting of the Anglican-Roman Catholic Consultation on Unity and Mission. He plans to celebrate on April 11, 2025 the 100th anniversary of the diocese of Yambio, whose cathedral is the oldest church building in the Sudans. Peni recently led a three-day revival, along with an evangelist from a Pentecostal church, challenging witchdoctors and those who continue to trust in them. 

by Susan Virginia Mead

Photo: Students and staff celebrate the launch of their newly constructed primary school in the Diocese of Wau, part of the Internal Province of Northern Bahr al-Ghazal, in the Episcopal Church of South Sudan.

Launched in February 2024 through the efforts of Gabriel Turich Dak, a former South Sudanese refugee  educated in Kenya, the Kelly Hope Academy completed its first year November 8th. Beginning with 172 primary-level  students, Dak recruited teachers among other returnees from Uganda. Speaking at the Grand Launch was Dr. Clive Kelly, a physician from the U.K. and primary benefactor of the school, which is also supported by Grace Episcopal Church in Lexington,  Virginia.   More at wau.anglican.org

by Thomas H. Staal

While heads of state, including General al-Burhan of Sudan, were in New York in late September attending the United Nations General Assembly,  U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield announced nearly $424 million in additional humanitarian assistance for people in need in Sudan and in neighboring refugee-hosting countries.

The war in Sudan has become the largest humanitarian disaster in the world. More people need food aid and stand on the brink of starvation in Sudan than in all other disasters in today’s world combined.  The Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWSNet) of USAID shows close to 25 million Sudanese in need of humanitarian assistance. A large proportion are classified in the two highest need categories: Famine and Emergency.  

The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine estimates that there have been 400,000 “excess deaths” per year due to the war in Sudan. Excess deaths are caused by direct war injuries, disease, and starvation.  That means that there have likely been 600,000 deaths due to the war since the outbreak of hostilities in April 2023.

The warring parties show no interest in halting the fighting. They dishonor ceasefire commitments they made in 2023, and not even agreed to attend ceasefire talks this year.  The two leaders — Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) leader Gen. al-Burhan and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) leader Hemedti — have no real incentive to stop fighting. They would likely be either jailed or assassinated if and when the fighting ends. So the war continues, with serious human rights abuses being committed across most of the country,  by both sides.

Sacks of sorghum flour await difficult delivery to hungry people Sudan.

Both warring parties actively and consistently disrupt and restrict humanitarian assistance to needy people.  Active fighting in many locations has caused all international organizations to withdraw  international staff from all but a few areas under the SAF control on the east side of the country.  Where local staff remain, of both local and international organizations, they face harassment, bureaucratic restrictions, and physical abuse, including death.  

 When aid is delivered, it is often looted, or stolen by the warring parties.  Some success has been achieved by providing financial transfers through Starlink to community-level groups, enabling them to purchase food or other supplies from the local market. Those supplies are very limited, and those groups are often harassed by the warring parties and their funds taxed or stolen.  

Tom Staal

Severe flooding has covered forty counties in South Sudan, affecting almost one million people. In Juba, President Salva Kiir signed into law a South Sudan Truth Commission and a Compensation & Reparation Authority, but he has not created the promised hybrid Criminal Court to investigate South Sudan war crimes.

War continues in Sudan — particularly severe in Gezira State since October, plus a seven-month siege of the city of  El Fasher in Darfur which could end at any time with the city falling to General Mohamed “Hemedti” Hamdan Dagalo’s Rapid Support Force. I am distressed by the report that in Khartoum the RSF has turned its guns on those staffing the  “emergency response rooms”, which have been providing one meal per day for starving people.  There are no indications of serious peace talks in the offing, as the Biden Administration winds down.

Scrolling down, you can read details of Sudan’s humanitarian disaster from my friend Thomas H. Staal, a retired Counselor in the U. S. Agency for International Development, who recently returned to the U.S. after three months in Nairobi directing relief efforts in Sudan.

On June 28 in Louisville, Kentucky, before closing the 81st General Convention of The Episcopal Church, the deputies and bishops authorized our Washington office to advocate for US government efforts to persuade countries supporting the combatants in Sudan to cease supplying arms, equipment, and funds.  They called also for high-level diplomacy to mobilize from many countries the funds and equipment needed to relieve the impending famine, restore medical care, and reconstruct Sudan.

Resolution: Response to the crisis in Sudan and support for the Episcopal Church of Sudan

AFRECS Board members, testifying before the joint legislative committee on World Mission, offered first-hand testimony from His Grace Archbishop Ezekiel Kondo, recorded during a BBC interview in April 2023 while he hid with a dozen Sudanese Christians as the Khartoum Cathedral was being overrun. Kondo’s closing words, as flying bullets could be heard in the background, were inspiring:  “Nobody knows how and when this situation will come to an end.  There is so much fear among the Sudanese people…. I thought about the boat, the disciples and Jesus. The disciples cried out ‘Don’t you care that we are about to die?’ And Jesus wakes up and commanded the wind to be quiet and be still.  And it was. I believe God is able to do and does things.  And this is the whole hope that we have.  That [for] this sinking boat the waves and the wind will die out.”

The Presiding Bishop was asked to encourage donations to Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD) and the American Friends of the Episcopal Church of the Sudans (AFRECS) to aid in this effort.

The resolution submitted by former AFRECS Board member Russell V. Randle, current Board member Susan E. Bentley, and Diocese of Virginia lay Deputy Cindi Bartol requested the Presiding Bishop to designate a season of prayer for Sudan later this year by our dioceses, congregations, clergy, and people.

The Right Reverend Sean Rowe, elected Presiding Bishop at the convention in Louisville, will take office on November 2, succeeding the Right Reverend Michael Bruce Curry.

Grace Episcopal Church in Lexington, Virginia will hold its annual celebration of the life of Marc R. Nikkel (1950-2000) on September 8.  Nikkel was ordained in the Diocese of Southwestern Virginia by Bishop Heath Light , supported by the Church Mission Society of the UK, and served for 20 years as a teacher in the Episcopal Church of Sudan.  His letters from Sudan (Why Haven’t You Left?, edited by Grant LeMarquand, available at churchpublishing.org) have inspired many.

Photo: Gathering at the AFRECS exhibit at the Louisville General Convention were (L to R) Archbishop Hilary Garang of South Sudan; Joseph P. Alaak of the Diocese of Nebraska; Dorothea Brooks, member of the Standing Commission on World Mission; Bishop Anthony Poggo, Secretary-General of the Anglican Communion; Anderial Lual of the Diocese of Arizona; and Archbishop Thabo Makgoba of Capetown and Metropolitan of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa.

Three Sudanese rectors of Sudanese congregations in the United States were active at the recent Louisville Convention. The Reverend Agook Akuol serves a South Sudanese congregation in Houston, Texas.  The Reverend Anderia Lual serves the congregation of St. Paul the Apostle in Phoenix. Arizona. Joseph P. Alaak, a graduate of Virginia Seminary serving as Assisting Cleric/Sudan Missioner at St. Martha’s Episcopal Church in Papillion, a suburb of Omaha, was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop J. Scott Baker on August 16.  Deacon Daniel Kuol assists at Messiah Trinity Episcopal Church in Louisville, Kentucky.

Elsewhere, The Rev. Zachariah Jok Char and Deacon Abraham Muong Anei lead worship in English on the first Sunday and Dinka on the other Sundays of the month in Sudanese Grace Episcopal Church’s own building in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Jacob Deng Aleer is scheduled to be ordained to the priesthood August 31 at St. Andrew’s Church in Des Moines by Bishop Betsey Monnot of Iowa.  The Reverend Kwathi Akol Ajawin, pastor of the African Sudanese congregation at Cornerstone Free Evangelical Church in Annandale, Virginia, plans to visit Sudanese congregations in Melbourne, Australia in the month of September.  John Thon Majok directs the Refugee and Forced Displacement Initiative at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C.

Photo: Hilary Garang Deng, a retired Archbishop in the Episcopal Church of South Sudan, shares with AFRECS leaders (L to R) Steven Miles, Anita Sanborn, and Dane Smith an artistic creation he made while visiting the General Convention in Louisville.

In the congested bazaar of the Louisville General Convention, a lanky African in a black suit and purple shirt attracted browsing visitors June 24-26 while he sat drawing with oil pastel crayons.  Hilary Garang Deng,  head of the art department at the University of Juba and retired bishop of Malakal in South Sudan, embraced old friends and invited strangers to pray for peace in their own hearts and for healing of the war-ravaged Sudans.

AFRECS Board Member Steven Miles said he was moved by Archbishop Hilary’s work as it expressed, in Steven’s words, “a re-creation, a spiritual expression of our Risen Lord as expressed by the empty Cross and the dazzling sunrise in the background.”

Bright Stars, the first men’s basketball team to represent South Sudan in the Olympic Games, reached the semifinals in Villeneuve-d’Ascq before being defeated by Serbia 96-85 in a hotly contested game August 3, 2024. Expectations for the team were high after it lost a pre-Olympics game on July 20 in London by a single point – 101-100 – to the United States team led by LeBron James. AFRECS Board member Steve Miles noted that most of the players for South Sudan were descendants of South Sudanese refugees to the US or Australia.  “Several had outstanding collegiate basketball careers in the US or played with NBA teams,” he commented, “but were ultimately released from those NBA teams, sometimes for reasons that sound (as described in the ESPN article) rather capricious.” An ESPN reporter predicted, “There probably will be a movie made about the South Sudan basketball team someday.”

LINK: South Sudan Coach Accuses Refs of Bias in Olympic Loss to Serbia

The AFRECS team at the 81st Episcopal Convention in Louisville in June was honored by the presence of artist and retired Archbishop Hilary Garang Deng of Malakal.  A magnetic figure, he greeted and prayed with South Sudanese and American friends,while sketching vibrant oil pastel works.

Inconclusive Sudan talks were set up for Geneva August 14, arranged by the US with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the UAE as co-sponsors. The SAF did not show up. A new round was scheduled in Cairo August 26, but failed to materialize. One positive development: the SAF has now agreed that humanitarian assistance can enter Darfur via Adre, a key site it had previously ruled out.

The Famine Review Committee, a UN-related body for measuring food crises, has declared parts of North Darfur to be in famine, especially the ZamZam displacement camp housing 500,000 just south of El Fasher.  Famine is also projected for other parts of Darfur, Gezira State, and Kordofan unless humanitarian access improves.  One estimate projects that as many as 2.5 million could die from starvation. Pray for the Sudanese and urge maximum US efforts to save them.