As talks in Geneva aimed at ending the 16-month Sudanese conflict began 14 August, a Catholic bishop in the region stressed that addressing the humanitarian situation in the northeast African country cannot not wait for “tomorrow.”
Bishop Stephen Nyodho Ador Majwok of Malakal, South Sudan, a diocese bordering Sudan, spoke amid a warning that the conflict that started in April 2023 had created the world’s largest humanitarian crisis and triggered famine-like conditions across the country.
His diocese is shouldering the burden of new refugees and returnees forced out by the Sudanese war.
Bishop Majwok said, “The suffering is really terrible. Nobody can wait for tomorrow.” The war between the Sudan Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces started in the capital Khartoum on 15 April, 2023.
According to the International Rescue Committee, the war casualty estimate is hard to count, with the organisation saying the conflict may have killed between 15,000 and 150,000 people.
More than 10 million people have been displaced; more than 25 million—half of Sudan’s population—need humanitarian assistance, according to IRC.
Meanwhile on 4 August, the army and the General Intelligence Service evacuated five Italian nuns, a priest and 20 South Sudanese nationals who had been trapped in Khartoum, the capital, for a year and four months.
They were the last missionaries still living in Sudan amid the conflict.