Why It’s Costly for Catholic Entities in War-Torn Sudan to Engage in Peacebuilding Initiatives

He added, “Sometimes, even if you do something in good faith, your actions are misinterpreted. In the country, you can not even run a program on peace-building. If you try to do this, you are seen to be siding with either of the warring factions.”

The CAFOD official however clarified that community level, the Church, local leaders, and all the people are “getting along well.”

“The context, however, does not allow for any peace initiatives at the moment,” he emphasized.

Sadia said that he had seen Catholic Bishops in Sudan engage in efforts to heal the country at community level, and sometimes through the Nunciature.

“We have two Bishops and one Archbishop in the country. We also have a handful of Priests. These Church ministers are not many, but they are engaging with their communities where they are,” he said, and added, “At the national level, the Church leaders raise their issues through the Nuncio, at a diplomatic level.”

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The Ugandan-born CAFOD official who currently resides in the relatively peaceful Kisti in Sudan’s White Nile state said that amid the region’s humanitarian crisis, there is some Church life in Kosti, a pastoral region carved out of the Catholic Archdiocese of Khartoum. 

“We are few because the majority of the population are Muslims. But we have a number of parishes. On Sundays we have Holy Mass, and other Christian denominations have their services,” he said, and added, “We also have strong Small Christian Communities (SCCs) that take care of the needs of their members. SCCs in particular are very key in our work at CAFOD.”

In the interview with ACI Africa, Sadia spoke at length about the worsening humanitarian situation in several parts of Sudan, with the current cholera devastation especially in the country’s Darfur region taking a toll on the population already battered by the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The White Nile where he stays, he said, is one of the least affected States in Sudan but only as far as the fighting is concerned. 

“We don't have major issues apart from occasional drone attacks,” Sadia said, and added, “With incoming refugees and the high cost of living, however, White Nile is experiencing a worsening humanitarian situation, just as many other regions in the country. We are receiving more and more IDPs coming from the Kordofan region, where fighting is going on. On top of that, we have about 500,000 South Sudanese refugees in this same place.”

He said that the humanitarian situation in Sudan does not look good, especially in locations where fighting is still ongoing, like in the Darfur region and in the Kordofan region. 

“Because of the fighting, lives are being lost. The infrastructure has been destroyed. People don't have food. It is in Kordofan where you heard people were at one point feeding on leaves. In the Darfur, the situation is the same,” the CAFOD official said.

He said that accessibility to places where fighting is still going on remains a challenge and getting aid to the people who are trapped there is not easy.

One of the places he highlighted that remain inaccessible is El Fashir town. “For you to get to this place, you must first go to Chad. You fly to Egypt or Ethiopia, then connect to N’Djamena. At the border between Chad and Sudan, you encounter a fresh set of challenges. You must first be cleared by Chad authorities. You get a visa, which sometimes takes days to process before you are cleared to proceed to Sudan,” he said.

Despite the accessibility challenges, CAFOD is working to intervene in the crisis, especially in the ongoing cholera devastation.

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Where power plants have been destroyed by war, the aid agency is transporting water manually using trucks from the source to distribution points near the people, especially in camps for those internally displaced.

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.