According to the ACN official, it is in situations such as the one in South Sudan that the charity foundation “comes into action.”
To support the victims of the Sudanese war, specifically those now living in South Sudan, ACN says it has launched an awareness campaign in Portugal, and is seeking to help the Church in South Sudan, the neighbouring country that is trying to welcome, as best it can, thousands of desperate people fleeing war and hunger.
ACN finds it “dramatic” that the war in Sudan in which an estimated 15 million people have been killed and 8.6 million displaced has received very little media coverage.
Additionally, the war has left 25 million people in dire need of humanitarian assistance where an estimated 18 million are facing severe hunger.
ACN estimates that there will be around 10.7 million displaced people and refugees, which, according to the charity foundation, “represents one of the biggest humanitarian crises on the Planet.”
“Dramatically for these populations, this situation is hardly talked about, and this is, in fact, one of the forgotten wars in the world,” ACN says of the conflict between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the paramilitary force under General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, and army units of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) that are loyal to the head of Sudan's transitional governing Sovereign Council, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.
In its campaign, ACN is circulating letters to homes of the foundation’s benefactors, bearing the witness of Church leaders in South Sudan who speak of the humanitarian crisis caused by the Sudanese war.
In the letter, for instance, Stephen Ameyu Martin Cardinal Mulla, the Archbishop of South Sudan’s Catholic Archdiocese of Juba speaks about the needs of the refugees being “gigantic ”.
“Please come to the aid of these displaced people who have no food, no water, no tents or basic necessities,” the South Sudanese Cardinal says, adding that all the refugees who crossed the border, fled the war in Sudan and are now with nothing. “They left everything behind, running for their lives,” he says.
Agnes Aineah is a Kenyan journalist with a background in digital and newspaper reporting. She holds a Master of Arts in Digital Journalism from the Aga Khan University, Graduate School of Media and Communications and a Bachelor's Degree in Linguistics, Media and Communications from Kenya's Moi University. Agnes currently serves as a journalist for ACI Africa.
