A South Sudanese bishop has warned that food is being used as a weapon by parties involved in the brutal civil war in Sudan, a country on the brink of famine.

“They harass humanitarian agencies,” the RC Bishop of Yei, the Rt Revd Alex Lodiong Sakor Eyobo, told the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales last week. “And, when humanitarian agencies are harassed, they stop delivering food because they also have to protect their own lives.

“The food aid sometimes is blocked by the RSF [Rapid Support Forces], not allowing them [the agencies] to enter. Because when you take food aid to the people, you are also going to feed their own enemies.

“So, they use food as a weapon, so that once food is not delivered, their enemy is weakened. That’s their point of view.”

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A South Sudanese bishop has warned that food is being used as a weapon by parties involved in the brutal civil war in Sudan, a country on the brink of famine.https://t.co/mGd5sSFiPS

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) July 12, 2024

“The profoundly suffering people of Sudan continue to be in my prayers with each passing day. Following the return of the Bishops of Leeds and Bradford from the country last week, I am again in mourning for the millions of innocent people who have been killed, displaced or had their lives destroyed by this conflict. It is estimated that between 8 and 11 million people have been displaced, and that famine and other forms of insecurity are now inevitable. It is unconscionable that such immense suffering is allowed to continue, forgotten by most of the world. “As the violence intensifies with the siege and battery of El Fasher by the Rapid Support Forces, I call on the countries supporting this destruction through weapons and financing to stop and channel their resources instead towards negotiations for peace. An honouring of the Jeddah commitments and UN Security Council’s call for a ceasefire is now of paramount importance. All those engaging in violence must cease. “The strong links between the Church of England, specifically the Dioceses of Leeds and Salisbury, and the Episcopal Church of Sudan are built on Christian solidarity with sisters and brothers in faith – and the conviction that all the people of Sudan are of infinite value before God. I stand in solidarity with my brother, the Most Revd Ezekiel Kondo, Primate of Sudan. We will continue to work and pray for peace and justice – and for a reconciliation that makes security and stability possible.”

Archbishop of Canterbury urges end to violence in Sudan | The Archbishop of Canterbury #sudan https://t.co/NgNOgc184h

— Sudan's Doctors for Human Rights (@sudan_doctors) June 17, 2024

Residents of Sudan’s besieged capital, Khartoum, said Wednesday that they are facing mounting hunger, sickness and continued airstrikes, despite a declared cease-fire between the country’s two most powerful generals, who began fighting 12 days ago.

Maysoon Abdallah Abdallmuttalib, who is among the leaders of a network of volunteers responding to crises in the city, said airstrikes led to the death of at least two people on Wednesday and wounded many others, adding strain to a medical system that is already in collapse. As of Wednesday afternoon, Abdallmuttalib said military planes were overhead, and that the bombing continued. During a brief lull, she said her network had received mostly requests for food, medicine and help evacuating, as conditions have grown increasingly dire for those that remain in the city.

“In this cease-fire, there was no ceasing of fire,” said Gasim Amin Oshi, a 29-year-old engineer who, like Abdallmuttalib, is a member of Sudan’s grass roots “resistance committees,” which have been active since the pro-democracy revolution in 2019. He said Wednesday afternoon that he had been hearing the sound of army helicopters circling, which means attacks are imminent.

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Conditions worsening in Sudan as rivals show little interest in cease-fires https://t.co/0HfyipSOSQ

— Gaurav Bansal (@JetLaggedGB) April 26, 2023

Street battles are being fought by Sudan’s rival forces in the capital, Khartoum, in an escalation of violence despite calls for a ceasefire to mark the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr.

The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) said they had agreed to a three-day truce and several hours later the army did the same.

But bombing, shelling and gunfire continue.

At least 400 people have been killed in a week of fighting.

It is the result of a bitter power struggle between two factions of the Sudanese military leadership over how the country should be run.

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Street battles are being fought by Sudan's rival forces in Khartoum, despite both the army and RSF paramilitary agreeing to a 3-day ceasefire to mark the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr. https://t.co/JyZOuMRiNl

— Donatella Rovera (@DRovera) April 21, 2023

A South Sudanese bishop who was forced with his family into exile before he was one year old, the Right Revd Anthony Poggo, has been named as the next Secretary General of the Anglican Communion. Bishop Anthony Poggo, the former Bishop of Kajo-Keji in the Episcopal Church of South Sudan, is currently the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Adviser on Anglican Communion Affairs.

Bishop Anthony was selected for his new role by a sub-committee of the Anglican Communion’s Standing Committee following a competitive recruitment process led by external consultants.

He will take up his new role in September, succeeding the Most Revd Dr Josiah Idowu-Fearon, who steps down after next month’s Lambeth [partial gathering] of Anglican bishops, which is being held in Canterbury, Kent, from 26 July to 8 August.

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A South Sudanese bishop who was forced with his family into exile before he was one year old, the Right Revd Anthony Poggo, has been named as the next Secretary General of the Anglican Communion. #Anglicans #AnglicanNewshttps://t.co/KVsx1QMO6K

— Anglican Communion News Service (@AnglicanNews) June 14, 2022

Pope Francis and Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby may undertake their much anticipated, but delayed joint trip to South Sudan in “the next few months” to encourage peace in a country still recovering from a bloody civil war and a humanitarian crisis.

“God willing, sometime in the next few months, perhaps year, we will go and see them in Juba, not in Rome, and see what progress can be made,” said the head of the global Anglican Communion on Feb. 6, referring to South Sudan’s leaders.

“That is history,” said Welby of the likely trip that will mark the first time the two ecumenical leaders have traveled together in such a capacity.

Francis and Welby had sought to visit the war-torn country in 2017, although the country’s violent conflict and deteriorating conditions had foiled those plans.

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Pope Francis and Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby may undertake their much anticipated joint trip to South Sudan in the next few months, reports NCR's @cwwhiteNCR. https://t.co/OvsHXbQQzE

— NCR (@NCRonline) February 7, 2022

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Death toll rises to 60 following Sudan crackdown

Read here: https://t.co/3ioNMNlZFO pic.twitter.com/R4BPUpGAWI

— CNN Africa (@CNNAfrica) June 5, 2019

O God, steadfast in the midst of persecution, by whose providence the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church: As the martyrs of the Sudan refused to abandon Christ even in the face of torture and death, and so by their sacrifice brought forth a plenteous harvest, may we, too, be steadfast in our faith in Jesus Christ; who with thee and the Holy Spirit livest and reignest, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Thursday we remember the Martyrs of the Sudan. On May 16, 1983, a small number of Episcopal and Roman Catholic clerical and lay leaders declared they “would not abandon God as they knew him.” pic.twitter.com/vpALmdUl9L

— Louisville Cathedral (@ChristChurchLou) May 15, 2019

O God of Love, thou didst deliver servant Josephine Margaret Bakhita from the bondage of slavery to serve you in true freedom; by her example help us to see those enslaved among us, and work to release them from their chains. In your mercy, give to all survivors healing from their wounds and joy in their liberation; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

#Josephine Margaret Bakhita pic.twitter.com/6dI2PVdRLL

— MAVA (@MA_VA38) February 8, 2019

The birth of a new province is a rare event, one that many Archbishops of Canterbury will never have attended, and like all rare and precious events, like even normal but precious events like the birth of a child, it is a new beginning which raises questions and hopes together. As we move to this new beginning we must especially thank His Grace Archbishop the Most Reverend Doctor Daniel Deng. He is the midwife of this Province, who has encouraged and strengthened it to the point we have now reached. Your Grace, we appreciate your work and your love for what is now a Province, your wisdom in its birth.

To be invited to preach here this morning is a privilege of which I could never have dreamed, your Grace Archbishop Ezekiel Kondo Kumar Kuku. I thank you and the province of the Sudan as it begins its life for the honour of being here at your birth. Like all new births it comes with responsibility within Sudan for Christians to make it work, and from outside to support, to pray, to love this new Province.

But what will happen? How will this new arrival survive and grow and develop? It is a birth in which the Church is already adult even at its beginning as a province, with a history and a background, a context of joy and of sorrow like all churches. We would be unusual people if we did not find that our hopes were accompanied by fears, our expectations by worries. If we look 10 years, 20 years, even 100 years from now, what then will this province be? Think how it has changed since the first Cathedral was built here over 100 years ago.

There is much to develop, many opportunities and many challenges.

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Listen to it all (it begins 1 hour and 49 minutes in). It covers a wide range of topics including same-sex marriage and the Primates Meeting as well as the growth of the Global South church, Charlie Gard+Brexit.

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby on Sunday declared Sudan the 39th province of the worldwide Anglican Communion, six years after the predominantly Christian south gained independence from the north.

The Anglican church in Sudan, a majority Muslim country, has been administered from South Sudan since the 2011 split which followed a civil war that left more than two million people dead.

Sunday’s ceremony in Khartoum added Sudan to the 85 million-strong worldwide Anglican communion’s 38 member churches — known as provinces — and six other branches known as extra provincials.

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The Anglican Communion has announced that Sudan will, in a few months from now, become a separate Province is its own right. Currently, Sudan is an internal province within the Anglican Church of South Sudan and Sudan.

The Secretary General of the Anglican Communion, Archbishop Josiah Idowu-Fearon, described it as a “welcome development” that will help connect Christians there with Anglicans in the worldwide Communion. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, will travel to Sudan for the inauguration of the new Province on July 30th.

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