Friends call for more action on Sudan
' Over twelve million have been forced to flee their homes – making Sudan the world’s largest displacement crisis.’
American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) has called for the US government to act to halt the genocide in Sudan.
The war began three years ago and has now reached a crisis point, AFSC said last month, as the crisis entered its fourth year: ‘What began as a power struggle in April 2023 has become a full-scale genocide. More than 60,000 people have been killed. Over twelve million have been forced to flee their homes – making Sudan the world’s largest displacement crisis. Famine is spreading.’
Urging the US and international community to ‘take decisive action toward achieving a peaceful resolution’, AFSC pointed out that the US officially declared in January 2025 that the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces committed genocide and war crimes against non-Arab minorities in Darfur. The Sudanese armed forces have also been implicated in war crimes, it added.
The call came as Christian Aid also pressed the UK government to ‘show leadership’ on the issue. Last month the #KeepEyesOnSudan coalition, which includes Christian Aid, handed in a petition to 10 Downing Street signed by more than 43,000 people calling on ministers to bring about a ceasefire.
James Wani, Christian Aid’s South Sudan programme and partnership lead, said: ‘This is a human-made catastrophe playing out in full view of the world. Millions are trapped between conflict and hunger, and those fleeing into South Sudan are finding a crisis on top of a crisis. Every day we meet people who have lost everything – their homes, their livelihoods, their sense of safety. They arrive in South Sudan hoping for refuge, only to find hunger and hardship waiting for them.’
Christian Aid said that the international development agency’s local partners are doing all they can to support refugees and returnees in both Sudan and South Sudan – many with harrowing tales of sexual violence.
