Director’s Update
Things go from bad to worse in Sudan.
This past week the New York Times devoted more than four pages to a road trip from Port Sudan to Khartoum by a Western journalist/photojournalist team. In the nearly destroyed capital, shelling and bombing continue between the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), who control Omdurman, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), dug into Khartoum. There are no current prospects of an end to fighting, which has been spreading in Sudan’s agricultural heartland in Gezira and Wad Medani.
In South Sudan the continued absence of steps deemed necessary for minimally free and fair elections in December caused the US to announce it would not provide election funding. Devastating floods appear imminent in Jonglei, Upper Nile, and Warrap because Lake Victoria in Uganda is at a record high. Refugee flows from Sudan have not ceased.
In these lands of conflict and dysfunction, the Episcopal churches remain faithful. Primate Ezekiel Kondo and Provincial Secretary Musa Abujam, operating out of Port Sudan, do what they can to support their flock in the Diocese of Wad Medani, now on the war’s frontline. Churches in Kadugli Diocese and the new sister Heiban Diocese, both clustered around the Nuba mountains, expand under the protection of the forces of SPLM-North General Abdelaziz Al-Hilu, a staunch supporter of religious freedom. Sudanese Anglicans fleeing to Egypt now outnumber their parish hosts. The Episcopal Church of South Sudan pursues its work in literacy, livelihood creation and trauma healing in additional dioceses. It now operates 39 schools. Primate Justin Badi Arama has mandated the new Episcopal Mediation Advisory Committee (EMAC) to work diligently with civil society and other church groups to press the government on election preparations.