February Update: Sudan Emergency Relief

Dear Friends

A terrible civil war continues to rip Sudan apart. Rival factions, armed and supported by foreign powers, are committing horrible crimes against the people as they wrestle for control of the country. In some areas, people are starving. In other areas—where there is relative peace—basic services are overwhelmed by the influx of desperate people who have fled their homes.

To help bring relief and hope into this dire situation, Samaritan’s Purse airlifted an Emergency Field Hospital and staff members to southeast Sudan in mid-December to a city called Gedaref. Two to three million fleeing people have encamped in the region. Our medical team found just one overcrowded maternity hospital there to serve this massive population. Fifteen to 20 women were in labour in one room of just seven beds.

We quickly partnered with this facility and set up our tents right outside the back door. Our team began seeing patients on Christmas Day, and we now have a 12-bed labour/delivery area—with one woman per bed—as well as an operating room for emergencies. We’ve already delivered scores of babies, including dozens by cesarean section.

We are also running an outpatient clinic at the same location, where a long line of women and children forms each morning even as temperatures climb over 40°C. Our medical team, working through the heat and the dust and the insects, usually sees about 100 people per day. Two inpatient wards—one for women and one for children—accommodate those who need additional treatment. Many are sick with parasitic diseases, dengue fever, malaria, chronic illnesses, and malnutrition.

Several things set our facility apart. Though the local hospital has excellent personnel, they lack both space and equipment. We are able to provide the space, catheters, IVs, beds, medications, and monitors that are needed. Even more important, our team has the freedom and ability to offer compassionate, one-on-one care to our patients, extending to them the love of the Lord Jesus Christ. In our labour and delivery room, there is a calm environment where doctors, nurses, and other staff members comfort and sincerely love on each patient. New mothers—and their mothers who often accompany them—are amazed and grateful. There are many smiles and tears of joy. One woman even gave our team a big high-five as she left. The patients all become part of our family in such a short time. We thank God for every opportunity to minister to them.

This is what Samaritan’s Purse does. We bring relief to people in great need in Jesus’ Name. As John writes,

“Let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth” (1 John 3:18).

May God bless you.

Franklin Graham
President, Samaritan’s Purse