Each morning, long before daybreak, Nadia* would travel to the local market to sell tea and coffee to bleary-eyed residents just waking up in her town in southern Sudan. She had to rise quite early so she could finish her business before her school started. Though she’s now a mother of three, she was hungry for an education—even if this meant foregoing a little more sleep. She did not want to forfeit her dream of an education, which had been cut short by war when she was a child.
So, Nadia was heartbroken when war struck Sudan again last spring. It felt like her dreams, and those of fellow Sudanese, had been erased, along with any semblance of normalcy she and her family had enjoyed since relative peace came to her country a few years before.
Armed forces began to raid villages and cities across the country in April 2023—even targeting the busy market where she’d sold her tea and coffee to support her family. Her sole means of income had become a dangerous endeavor. The school closed, too.
Paralyzed by fear, Nadia hid out with her family at home, without food or water, serving a sentence of isolation and uncertainty.
Eventually, left with no other choice, Nadia took the risk to flee with her children.
“I decided that I will not remain here and die with my kids in my own home,” Nadia recounted. “I heard of entire families dying [if they tried to escape], but we made it outside the city and into the wilderness.”
For two days they journeyed through the oppressive heat of the dry season with no food and little water. The ever-present threat of armed groups loomed over them the whole way. Finally, they hobbled into a camp of nearly 50,000 displaced people.
Within days of her arrival, Samaritan’s Purse provided Nadia and thousands of others with bags filled with corn, beans, oil, and salt to sustain her family for a month.
“I am happy to feed my children and for them to not feel hungry,” she said. “When I sleep, I think about how we almost died of hunger and how this food has saved our lives.”
Since war returned to Sudan last year, Samaritan’s Purse has been assisting fleeing families in Kordofan. We’re providing both food and medical care in Jesus’ Name. We’ve also provided clean water sources, along with improved sanitation and hygiene, through freshwater wells and pit latrines to prevent life-threatening waterborne illness.
Samaritan's Purse has been helping the war-ravaged Sudanese and South Sudanese people since 1997, providing food, shelter, clean water, medical care, and other aid in crisis situations. Your gift will help meet physical and spiritual needs by providing desperately-needed assistance to those impacted by the 2023 civil war.