HUMANITARIAN APPEAL LETTER
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Dear Senator /Dear Representative
American Friends of the Episcopal Church of the Sudans (AFRECS) has watched with ever increasing distress the unfolding catastrophe in Sudan. That catastrophe began with the military intervention of October 2021, which derailed a transition to democratic rule, and has been rapidly expanding in scope since April 2023, when the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) went to war with each other. The RSF has received massive arms supplies from the United Arab Emirates (denied by the UAE). The SAF has been amply supplied by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Iran.
Death toll estimates range from 150,00 to 400,000, according to the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. Fourteen million have been displaced. Two-thirds of the population – over 30 million – need humanitarian support. For well over a year Sudan has been recognized by the United Nations and the U.S. Government as the largest humanitarian crisis in the world.
Thus far Sudanese and international efforts to end the crisis have failed. That is in part because there has been a lack of attention to the Sudan crisis in a world of multiple conflicts. Recently the United States, the United Nations, the African Union, the League of Arab States, the European Union, numerous European states, and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD – the regional group for the Horn of Africa) affirmed their commitment to the Sudanese people, to a peaceful and democratic future, and to the territorial integrity of the Sudan. Following consultations with Sudanese political stakeholders, that group reaffirmed the urgent need for “a humanitarian truce, leading to a permanent cease-fire,” and the beginning of “a comprehensive and inclusive civilian-led dialogue process.”
Accordingly, we urge Congress to:
- Insist that the U.S. Government give high priority to promoting a solution to the Sudan crisis;
- Urge the U.S. Government:
- to put pressure on those governments providing arms to the RSF, the SAF and other militia groups to cease arms transfers immediately, including arms-supplying governments which deny such transfers;
- to find additional measures, together with international partners, to pressure the RSF and the SAF to reach a humanitarian truce;
- to exercise leadership in a vast humanitarian effort, when a truce is realized.
Anita Sanborn, President
Dane F Smith, Executive Director