Lives Saved Spotlight

A Race to Save Yousif

March 24, 2026

Animal Bite Paralyzes Young Boy

Twelve-year-old Yousif was hunting with his dog in the muggy heat of a spring day outside his village. He enjoyed wandering through the forested terrain and hunting for small animals that he would bring home to help feed the family.

Today was a successful day. His dog caught a squirrel and brought it to the boy. Yousif felt proud. He would be contributing food for his family’s meal tonight.

As Yousif took the squirrel from his dog’s mouth, the rodent sunk its teeth into the boy’s hand in a manic attempt to escape. The bite was painful and immediately Yousif’s hand began to swell. But he ignored the injury, and continued on his way home. The family assumed it was not serious, expecting the swelling to go down on its own. As a result, no steps were taken to treat the swelling or the site of the wound.

Yousif went another two weeks without treatment of any sort. But on day seventeen following the bite incident, he began to break out in welts all over his body. He suddenly became very ill.

At this point, Yousif’s parents took him to their local health clinic in Kordofan. They gave the boy some medicine and he stayed at the clinic for four days to observe whether he improved.

But Yousif wasn’t responding to the medicine. The welts across his body didn’t recede. He was growing sicker. And even more terrifying, paralysis was starting to set in throughout his body.

As this chilling reaction developed, the clinic told Yousif’s parents they were going to send their son to Mother of Mercy Hospital. Yousif was rushed by ambulance to the Sudan Relief Fund partner facility in the Nuba Mountains, the only hospital of its kind for hundreds of miles. Even by ambulance, the trip took four hours. The clinic hoped Mother of Mercy could give Yousif the help he needed – it was his last chance.

By the time Yousif arrived at Mother of Mercy Hospital, he could no longer move. He had become fully paralyzed. He had rashes all over his body. Dr. Tom Catena and his team sprang into action to treat the critically ill boy.

Yousif received immediate injections to counterattack the deadly reaction he was having, as everyone held their breath to see if his body would respond. The diagnosis was correct – and the medicine worked. It was a critical turning point that would save young Yousif’s life.

Slowly his body began to fight its way back. The welts and rashes that covered his body started to disappear. His ability to move began to return. By the grace of God, his mobility was soon fully restored. Yousif would make a complete and miraculous recovery.

Yousif was discharged from the hospital alongside an ecstatic mother, who hadn’t been sure this day would come. Yousif was well and was going home.

But this twelve year-old boy only survived because the medical care he needed was there for him at a critical moment – lifesaving care that supporters like you make possible every single day, at a remote mission hospital in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan.

These stories of Lives Saved are possible because of generous donors who bring medical care to people and places without it. Mother of Mercy Hospital and the medicines used to treat patients like Yousif are fully funded by charitable donations. Thank you for saving lives and bringing hope.

Would you like to pray for our work? Sign up for our email prayer group to receive weekly emails sharing important needs to pray for. You’ll join thousands in our community around the globe praying to bring hope and help to suffering people in a forgotten part of the world. Click here to find out more.

Challenging Emergency Surgery Saves Dying Man

February 17, 2026

“The distance between me and death was just milliseconds.” – Lodu

When 70 year-old Lodu first felt pain in his abdomen, he thought it was just one of those aches and pains of growing old.

But when the pain became excruciating, it was clear this was something more. Fortunately for Lodu and his family, they lived within reach of St. Theresa Mission Hospital Nzara, a Sudan Relief Fund partner facility. By the time he and his son reached the hospital, Lodu was already delirious and nearly unconscious.

St. Theresa Mission Hospital Nzara is the only place to find critical medical care for literally hundreds of miles across a vast and remote region of Western Equatoria, a state located in the southwestern region of South Sudan. People in need of medical care come all the way from the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo to find help here.

Lodu was feverish and slipping in and out of consciousness. Doctors suspected an infection. He was ushered quickly into the operating room where medical officers performed an exploratory laparotomy to determine the cause. They found a life-threatening infection in his intestines. It was advanced to such an intense level that if immediate intervention weren’t performed, they knew death was imminent.

The problem was the only surgeon immediately available was Sudan Relief Fund partner, Dr. Taban, an OB and gynecologist who also serves as the hospital’s director. The next nearest facility equipped to treat Lodu was all the way in Juba, some 280 miles away. It was not an option. “I was certain that without surgery, death was just next door. And with the surgery, there could be a window and a ray of hope for success,” Dr. Taban said.

As an obstetrician, he had never performed this particular surgery. “I knew they would not have blamed me if I declined to operate. But I knew there was no other surgeon available in this vast area to refer him to.” Dr. Taban knew what he had to do. So he prayed. “With the trust bestowed and my previous surgical experience, I invoked God to operate through my hands.”

Dr. Taban responded swiftly and together with the medical officers, they performed the surgery to remove the deadly infected area and reconnect his intestine to healthy tissues. It was a success. Lodu came through the surgery well and experienced no complications. Within two weeks, he was recuperated and ready to safely go home.

When Lodu’s son came to the hospital to bring his father home, he expressed his amazement at what had happened. “My father was closer to death than life,” he described when he had brought him in. “I came to the hospital expecting to have to bury my father. But instead, Glory to God and the entire team of St. Theresa Hospital!”

Dr. Taban also gave the glory to God for Lodu’s successful outcome, but admitted we have to be willing to be God’s tools. “I never envisioned that I would perform this type of surgery one day,” he said. “God indeed works through His people and only He knows the hour when He will do it.”

The hospital staff has been calling Lodu “Patient of the Year” for his remarkable turn of events. “With all the odds favoring imminent mortality, we continue to reminisce over how mysteriously God can perform miracles,” they said.

Lodu was more than grateful for the level of care provided to him by the staff of St. Theresa Mission Hospital Nzara. He says he prays for the hospital’s “great role in caring for the people of this community.”

These stories of Lives Saved are made possible by compassionate donors who support Sudan Relief Fund facilities that bring medical care to remote places. Thank you for saving lives like Lodu’s and countless others for nearly three decades.

Learn about becoming a sustaining partner.

The Girl with No Name: Resilience, Slavery, and the Soul of Sudan

February 5, 2026

They beat her name right out of her.

This concept is nearly impossible to grasp from our modern, connected world. The thought, the idea of a person being so thoroughly broken by trauma that the very word used to identify them – their name since birth – slips into a mental fog of survival. For a seven-year-old girl in the Darfur region of Sudan in the 1870s, this wasn’t a metaphor. It was a physical, agonizing reality.

Can you imagine being seven years old, playing in the doting warmth of your family home, only to be ripped from your mother’s arms by Arab slave raiders? The horror of realizing that you will never again see your father’s gaze, never again intertwine fingers with your brothers, or share the secret laughter of your sisters, is a grief that should be ancient history. Yet, for the people of Sudan and what is now South Sudan, this story is both 150 years old and as fresh as this morning’s news.

A Land Defined by Shadows

The word Sudan comes from the Arabic Bilad as-Sudan, meaning “Land of the Black People.” It is a region with a history as deep as the Nile itself. This area was home to prehistoric relics dating back 50,000 years and the ancient, gold-rich Kingdom of Kush. However, for centuries, this land has been viewed by outsiders not as a cradle of civilization, but as a source of natural resources – human lives.

In 1821, the Ottoman Egyptian ruler Mohammed Ali invaded Sudan with a specific, cruel directive: to search for slaves. This oppressive “Turkiyya” rule devastated southern Sudan. This was the world into which a young girl was born in 1869. She was part of a prosperous family in the village of Olgossa; her father was the brother of a village chief, and she grew up surrounded by three brothers and three sisters.

The walls of her home were filled with love, but the world outside was a hunting ground. When she was just five, raiders stole her sister. Two years later, they came for her.

The 600-Mile Walk into Silence

The marauders dragged her from her home and forced her to walk barefoot for 600 miles to El Obeid, the grim epicenter of the Sudanese slave trade. For a child, 600 miles is not just a distance; it is an eternity of hot sand, sharp rocks, and the mounting realization that your previous life is fading away.

She was bought and sold twice during this journey. The trauma performed a kind of psychic surgery on her. When her captors demanded her name, she could not answer. Her mind had retreated to a place where words didn’t exist. Seeing her silence, her abusers mockingly called her Bakhita, the Arabic word for “fortunate.”

The irony was as sharp as the knives used to brand her. Over the next twelve years, Bakhita was sold and resold into different rounds of torturous captivity. She was demeaned, denied her humanity, and physically damaged. One of her owners, a Turkish general, practiced ritualistic cruelty. He scarred her with tattoos, a process involving 144 intricate cuts across her chest, back, and arms. Then they rubbed them with salt to ensure the scars remained permanently. She was recklessly tortured to within an inch of her life, once left unable to walk for a month after a particularly savage fury from her master’s family.

The Spirit of a New Nation

To understand Bakhita is to understand the spirit of South Sudan – the world’s youngest nation. Marred by decades of civil war, droughts, and famine, South Sudan finally achieved independence in 2011 after 99 percent of the population voted to break away from the north and endured a protracted and bloody battle.

Yet, the “waiting and wondering” that Bakhita endured remains a reality for children there today. Even in 2026, the region is haunted by conflict. Support agencies struggle to provide aid as staff are kidnapped and storehouses are ransacked. Perhaps most horrifyingly, children are still conscripted into wars, sometimes used as human mine detectors. The “Land of the Black People” remains a place where endurance is not a choice, but a requirement for existence.

Bakhita’s story, however, takes a turn that moves from the depths of outrage to the heights of inspiration. In 1883, she was sold in Khartoum to the Italian Vice Consul, Callisto Legnani. For the first time in over a decade, she was not met with a whip or a blade. When the political climate in Sudan turned violent during the Mahdist War, Legnani took Bakhita to Italy.

The Power of the Release

In the quiet of Italy, the girl who had been branded “fortunate” as a joke finally found the literal meaning of the word. Entrusted to the care of the Canossian Sisters in Venice, she was introduced to a concept she had never known: a “Master” who did not lash her but loved her.

It is here that Bakhita’s story transcends mere survival and becomes a lesson in the human ability to forgive. On January 9, 1890, she was baptized with the name Josephine Margaret Fortunata. She didn’t just find a new name; she found a new identity that the raiders could never reach.

The religious aspect of her life was not a retreat from her past, but a total reclamation of it. She famously said, “If I were to meet those slave raiders that abducted me and those who tortured me, I’d kneel down to them to kiss their hands, because if it had not been for them, I would not have become a Christian and religious woman.”

This is not the sentiment of a victim; it is the declaration of a woman who has achieved a complete victory over her oppressors. By refusing to carry the weight of hatred, she ensured that her abusers no longer had power over her. She spent the next 50 years of her life in Schio, Italy, serving as a cook, a sacristan for Mass, and a portress (gatekeeper). Her gentleness and ever-present smile became so legendary that when she passed away in 1947, thousands flocked to her funeral.

A Legacy of Hope and Empowerment

Bakhita walked with beauty in a body bearing 144 physical scars. She proved that while the world can steal your name, your freedom, and your family, it cannot steal the soul unless you allow it.

Today, St. Josephine Bakhita is the patron saint of Sudan and victims of human trafficking. She stands as a national treasure for a people who have known very little stability. Her life encapsulates the work of modern volunteers and partners who fight every day to help the people of South Sudan achieve a life of empowerment.

Partners and volunteers continue the fight today to liberate those who are still captive to oppression. According to the United Nations’ International Labor Organization, modern slavery – including forced labor, sexual exploitation and forced marriage – affects an estimated 50 million people in today’s world.

Further, the chaos of wars, violence, and conflict create situations that are rife for preying on the vulnerable – displacing women and children, creating refugees and orphans. According to research conducted by the Arise Foundation, trafficking occurs in 90% of wars and armed conflicts.

Conflicts like Sudan’s nearly three-year civil war (a present and ongoing conflict that continues to devastate families and communities today) breed environments that foment greater instances of child slavery, conscription into militias, and girls forcibly taken as “wives” or other forms of human slavery.

Non-profits like Sudan Relief Fund have fought among some of the most inhospitable conditions to bring food, clean water, clothing, shelter, health care and help for vulnerable children and orphans to Sudan and South Sudan, and they continue this fight today.

Whether enslaved to militias, human trafficking, or the oppression of extreme poverty, Sudan Relief Fund has been laying the groundwork for sustainable solutions and holistically transforming lives from despair to hope for nearly three decades – breaking the cycle of poverty that gives rise to instability, and empowering children through education and opportunity to achieve better futures.

Help fight poverty by helping young kids with education opportunities.

SRF 2025 4th Quarter Newsletter

January 27, 2026

Your Kindness at Work

Dr. P.J. Offers Firsthand Look at Aid Distribution

Physician and philanthropist Dr. P.J. came to be a dedicated supporter of SRF through his longtime friendship with Dr. Tom Catena, founder of Mother of Mercy Hospital in Nuba.

Dr. Tom with his wife and children.

Dr. P.J. has worked tirelessly in support of the hospital since its inception in 2008. At home, he
helps with funding and delivery coordination of critically needed medical supplies to the region.
And each year, he spends a few weeks volunteering on location and assisting with surgeries at Mother of Mercy Hospital. His on-the-ground observations
from a recent trip provide a sobering look at the realities on the ground — and the difference that our support makes.

“Issues I’m dealing with daily include shortages of everything, such as fuel, vehicles, and staff that makes distributing medications in a war zone difficult,” he noted, adding “but we’re getting it done.”

Getting supplies to Nuba requires meticulous logistical planning. The most recent shipment took five flights of a five ton cargo plane flying over the Sudd, the world’s largest swamp, to reach a landing strip in a refugee camp just south of the Sudanese border.

This lifesaving delivery was then trucked to a warehouse in Nuba, which Dr. P.J. reported as “dry, clean, and well organized”. From here it is distributed to clinics and hospitals as quickly as possible before the rainy season makes roads impassable.

Amid this hard work, Dr. P.J. was able to spend some personal time visiting with Dr. Tom and his wife Nasima. Their growing family now includes a second adopted child — Vincent Moses Catena — who was celebrating his first birthday and taking his first steps during this visit between old friends.

Dr. P.J. on his last visit to the Nuba
mountains.

Teaching Christ’s Love in Juba

SRF Delivers Key Classroom Funding

School children with their teacher.

The Sisters of the Sacred Heart arrived in Juba with a simple but profound mission: to bring Christ’s love and hope to children who had known only hardship.
The Sisters have been focusing their efforts into developing Redeemer Nursery and Primary School here into a safe place where children can receive both an education and the encouragement to believe in a brighter future.

The school has become an anchor of stability in a region scarred by the devastation of war. For families who fled violence with nothing but the clothes on their backs, Redeemer School represents more than lessons in reading and math. It represents dignity, opportunity, and hope.

When Redeemer School first opened its doors this year, the Sisters welcomed 400 students. In just a short span of time, enrollment skyrocketed to over 700 children as displaced families fled into the region to escape fierce fighting between troops nearby.

The Sisters turned to SRF, and its loyal supporters delivered. Your funding will help build an additional classroom, as well as providing desks, so that no child must be turned away during this desperate time.

The Redeemer School is a beacon of hope in one of the world’s most difficult places. With the Sisters’ loving dedication and your kind support, children here are learning that they are not forgotten—that God has a plan for their lives.

SRF staff inspecting a new school building.

The Lives You’ve Saved

Providing New Life for a Wounded Teen

15-year-old Salfa has grown up with guns and rifles around the home. It’s common for families and civilians to keep them on hand for self-protection, living in an environment where
violent conflict can erupt without warning.
While retrieving a stray calf in the mountains with his uncle, Salfa was accidentally shot when a cocked rifle fell and fired next to where he lay huddled near a fire. The bullet tore into Salfa’s leg.

He received basic emergency treatment at the nearest clinic, but the staff there informed Salfa’s family that they were not equipped to perform the necessary operation to save his injured leg. They urged him to go to Mother of Mercy Hospital—the only hospital within 200 miles—where Dr. Tom Catena and his staff would be able to help.

Enduring an agonizing trip, Salfa arrived at Mother of Mercy suffering from blood loss, weak with pain and trauma. He was immediately rushed to the emergency department, where surgery was performed to remove the bullet.

Salfa recovering at Mother
of Mercy Hospital

Salfa’s surgery was successful. It took a full month of remaining at the hospital and learning to walk on his leg again, but he has now fully recovered. He knows how lucky he was to receive the care he needed at Mother of Mercy Hospital to save his leg and his life.

Lifting Morale Through Water and Education

New Well Continues Reshaping of Rimenze

Hope will soon be springing from the ground in Rimenze.

A new submersible well, funded by SRF, is being drilled on the grounds of Our Lady of Assumption School. Once complete, it will supply life-sustaining drinking, cooking, and cleaning water to the people here, including tens of thousands of refugees who’ve flocked for shelter from nearby battle zones.

Under the loving watch of the Brothers of Christian Instruction, Our Lady of Assumption has become an oasis in an area clearly in need of one. In addition to funding the boring of the new well, the Brothers have partnered with SRF to expand classroom and dormitory spaces to build out a well-rounded campus serving local children, refugees, and a large orphan population.

Rising from the ashes of years of civil war and unrest which left Rimenze devastated, the school has rapidly become known as the premier educational institution in the region. A massive 70% of the region’s children had nowhere to go and were not attending class or receiving any instruction at all – an unsustainable statistic for the future of South Sudan or any nation.

Our Lady of Assumption students.

Today, more than 1,000 vulnerable children are receiving a quality education here. More importantly, the school — and soon, its new well — has become a beacon of stability and positivity that many believed would never be possible in this battered region.

Download SRF 2025 4th Quarter Newsletter Here

A Widow and Baby are Given a New Chance

January 20, 2026

Pope Francis Center Rescues At-Risk Mothers

It was hard enough before her husband was killed. Riak was caring for her baby while suffering a crippling condition that left her on crutches in order to move about. Now with the loss of her husband, she suddenly found herself a single mother.

The news was devastating. Alternating between grief and fear, Riak wondered how she would survive. Her physical disability prevented her from being able to farm to grow food. How would she care for her infant, with no income and no assistance? Riak felt hopeless.

Being a single mother in this part of the world can be a life sentence to poverty, hunger, and poor health – for both mother and child. With few job opportunities, single mothers struggle to survive and feed their children. They have no health care if either one gets sick. Their outlook is often bleak.

One community in Nzara is working to change this outlook and stop the cycle of illness and poverty. The Pope Francis Center for Peace and Wellness is dedicated to rescuing women in crisis like Riak, and the children affected by these tragic situations.

Through the generosity of our donors, the Center is able to intervene at the root cause of a family’s distress – to provide meaningful solutions for a sustainable future, and empower individuals to become self-sufficient.

The Center offers skills training to help widows and single mothers find employment. A food assistance program keeps families safe from the debilitating effects of malnutrition that can stunt a child’s growth permanently. Its medical care program treats children born with HIV and tracks their progress to help them thrive, go to school, and become successful adults.

The program offers widows and single mothers microfinance loans to launch small businesses, along with training in basic finance and management, so they can support themselves and invest for the future. Some of these small businesses grow to be so successful, the benefactor ends up with more than she needs, and is able to help support extended family and others in need.

Children in the Center’s program are able to attend and complete school and may even go on to college. Some have returned to lead in their communities and help others in the program break the cycle of poverty.

Riak’s life was turned around when she was introduced to the Pope Francis Center. At first it was difficult for her to believe. But then incredible joy and relief sank in. She realized she was not alone in her struggle. And her situation was not hopeless after all.

With the immediate care provided by the Center, Riak no longer has to worry how she’ll feed her baby. The center offers food assistance until a family like hers is on their feet. Riak will receive skills training so she can obtain employment that’s suitable to her physical constraints. She may even be taught how to run her own small business.

Because of the Center, she and her baby can look forward to a future with hope and possibility. A future that is changing for many every day, because your partnership supports programs that save.

These stories of Lives Saved are made possible because of generous donors like you who support facilities like the Pope Francis Center for Peace and Wellness. Each year, the lives of women and children in crisis are being transformed from despair to hope. Thank you for making a difference.

Would you like to pray for us? Sign up for our email prayer group to receive weekly emails sharing important needs to pray for. You’ll join a faith community around the globe praying to bring hope and help to suffering people in a forgotten part of the world. Find out more here.

SRF 2025 4th Quarter Newsletter

January 14, 2026

A Familiar Face in Bentiu

Bishop Christian Undertakes a New Mission

With the installation of Bishop Christian Carlassare, SRF has a valuable partner in the newly established Diocese of Bentiu, situated on the border with Sudan. He was previously known to our donors from his time as Bishop of Rumbek, where he survived a terrifying shooting in the parish house in 2021.

A Comboni missionary and native of Italy, Bishop Christian enthusiastically embraces his new assignment in Bentiu, which was carved out as a separate entity from the Catholic Diocese of Malakal by Pope Francis last year.

“I find it exciting to share in the poverty and challenges the people of Bentiu are encountering,” he said. “At the same time to [take] the first steps together to build up a community that – strengthened by faith – can be a source of transformation for the country.”

Bishop Christian and SRF will work in close partnership to aid the many in this region who have been displaced by catastrophic flooding. The dykes surrounding low-lying Bentiu have become brittle, regularly being breached during the rainy season. Flooding threatens all here, including over 150,000 IDP’s in South Sudan’s largest refugee camp.

The greatest immediate need is for fresh water. SRF is working to fund both solar powered submersible and hand pump wells to meet this urgent concern. Your generosity would be appreciated in making any gift you can to support these efforts to bring lifegiving water

Small Steps Toward Recovery

Visiting Surgeon Offers Hope in Nzara

St. Theresa Mission Hospital in Nzara has, like so much of South Sudan, unwittingly found itself thrust into the middle of the violent conflicts taking place. Medical teams here have been tasked with treating scores of wounded, both civilians and soldiers, who have incurred terrible wounds from all manner of hostile acts, many beyond the scope of their training.

SRF has been humbled to provide support for many important improvements at St. Theresa, most recently a critical addition to the hospital’s medical team. We are funding the addition of a visiting orthopedic surgeon, as well as a registered nurse and anesthetist, to help treat those in desperate need.

Dr. David Loro will travel to St. Therese from his practice in Uganda to perform surgery. His invaluable expertise will offer a vital service in a region where untreated physical injuries can easily lead to preventable disabilities, or even death.

This place of healing is a bastion of hope for more than a half million people in a region stretching from South Sudan to the borders of the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic. Every year, over 20,000 patients receive medical care here who wouldn’t have it without this facility.

It is in the most literal sense their only hope for hundreds of miles, in a difficult to traverse land.

The Lives You’ve Saved

Clean Water Helps Rebuild Communities

Clean water changes everything.

Recently our donor community funded much needed wells across Ave Maria parish, where thousands of internally displaced people took refuge after being forced to flee their homes due to violent warfare and conflict.

For too long, families like that of young, widowed Rousa, and three young children were forced to rely on murky, unsafe water for drinking and cooking. They had struggled for months with the ravages of severe, waterborne illnesses. Now, thanks to your support, they have a reason to rejoice: they finally have clean water. That’s the difference clean water makes. It saves lives and transforms entire communities. Water unites all humanity in our dependence on it.

It was a joyful moment for Rousa and her whole community when the well was completed in their village. A ceremony was held to celebrate the occasion, and a special blessing was given over the new well. The scene was beautiful, and joy filled the air as over 600 people danced, sang, prayed, and gave thanks for the clean water they now had.

With the support of our donors and partners, Sudan Relief Fund has been fighting to bring clean water to communities suffering without it. In 2024, we were able to drill more than 24 water wells across South Sudan. In 2025 SRF is ramping up its commitment, with plans to drill nearly 50 wells. Thank you for helping us bring this vital resource to people in need, like these families in Ave Maria parish and many others.

Confronting Classroom Challenges in Ave Maria

Teaching Order Arrives from Mexico

Ave Maria Parish in Western Equatoria, South Sudan, has been brightened by the arrival of four Sisters of Perpetual Adoration of Guadalupe, a teaching order based in Mexico. The sisters arrived in April to assist Father Avelino in bringing educational opportunities to the people of this remote region.

SRF is providing the sisters with funding to support their mission which includes building a convent, and other resources to help them navigate and reach the needy in this remote region. After spending six months learning English, the group arrived in South Sudan in time to attend the blessing of a new, SRF-funded well of Mozungo recently completed here.

As they undertake their teaching responsibilities, we are also working to arrange support for an important capital project necessitated by the almost overwhelming flow of refugees into Ave Maria.

The parish school currently has classrooms to accommodate about 360 students. However, the school is now serving almost 1,500 eager learners, displaced from their homes by famine and war. As a result, teaching is being done in makeshift outdoor classrooms, subject to the disruptions of wind, rain, and excessive heat.

With the support of our donors and the grace of God, SRF is planning to fund the building of permanent indoor classrooms to create a better learning environment, as we have done in the past. This will allow Father Avelino and the Sisters of Perpetual Adoration to deliver learning in a comfortable, welcoming environment.

SRF 2025 Q4 Newsletter

Download SRF 2025 4th Quarter Newsletter Here

Terror Strike Shatters Christmas Worship

January 9, 2026

Drone Attack Kills Civilians Gathered for Christmas Celebration

A drone attack on the village of Julud in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan killed 12 people and injured 19 others, as worshipers gathered to hold Christmas celebrations on December 25th.

Read the full article

Civilian Assault Condemned

The SPLM-North, an armed group who controls the region, said the bombing was a “deliberate attack on civilians who had gathered to celebrate a religious occasion – the Christmas holiday.” Photos confirm women, children, and elderly were among the injured and killed.

The attack is part of an escalating incidence of war crimes and violence aimed at unarmed civilian populations in Sudan’s civil war which is approaching its third year.

The Darfur Victims Support issued a statement condemning the drone strike. “The organization considers this attack a grave crime that may amount to a war crime, as it deliberately targeted civilians during a peaceful religious occasion without any legitimate military justification, within the broader context of repeated aerial assaults on populated civilian areas.”

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Women, children, and elderly were among the injured or killed in the Christmas day strike.

Drone Strike Part of Wider Aerial Campaign

The recent attack is part of a wider air campaign imposed by drone strikes and warplanes against rebel-controlled areas that targeted markets, hospitals, and homes in addition to military sites. A British foreign official told the BBC, “This evidence of military airstrikes hitting marketplaces and other civilian areas shows a clear and unacceptable disregard for the safety of innocent Sudanese civilians.”

Both warring parties – the Sudanese armed forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) – are accused of having committed mass killings, mass detentions that often follow ethnic lines, and the use of starvation as a weapon of warfare.

Changing Face of the War

The civil war that ignited in April of 2023 has entered a new phase, as fighting begins to infiltrate the Nuba Mountains – an area previously spared much of the violence due to its remote location and challenging terrain. The region also hosts refugee camps that have received more than a million internally displaced Sudanese.

The SPLM-North’s recent alliance with RSF forces has added a new dimension to the face of the war, now allowing RSF troops to operate in its territory that spans the Nuba Mountains.

The Kordofan region is the latest battleground in Sudan’s bloody and brutal conflict. RSF forces reportedly “extinguished SAF resistance in West Kordofan,” while intense fighting continues in North and South Kordofan around the cities of El Obeid, Dilling, and Kadugli.

An injured boy is the latest victim in an escalating pattern of targeted civilian assaults.

Humanitarian Aid an Urgent Need

The UN cited “grave concerns” in early December over “intensified hostilities, violence, atrocities and human rights abuses in the Kordofan region as a result of fighting between the SAF and the RSF, and their associated allied forces,” while the UN Human Rights Office in Geneva reported an “escalation of ethnic violence.”

Sudan Relief Fund continues to support civilians with humanitarian aid to hospitals and refugee camps in the Nuba Mountains, providing food during the nation’s widespread famine, and supplying medicine to Mother of Mercy Hospital – one of the few medical facilities still open in the area.

Much more humanitarian aid is urgently needed. All contributions will ship food and medicine to civilian refugee populations in the Nuba Mountains.

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New Pediatric Center Brings Hope to More Children

December 17, 2025

First Young Patients Treated at Inaugural Opening

In the small town of Nzara in the Western Equatoria state of South Sudan, a medical facility stands as a symbol of hope for more than half a million people.

St. Theresa Hospital serves a vast population stretching from South Sudan to the borders of the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic. The mission hospital is dedicated to providing some of the best medical care the country has to offer, and people travel long distances to seek treatment they can’t get anywhere else.

Fighting Childhood Mortality

Tragically, many children in this part of the world never live to see their fifth birthday. Even worse, many of these deaths are preventable if these children had received medical care. It’s telling that more than 70 percent of patients who come through the doors of St. Theresa Hospital Nzara are under the age of five.

“Without treatment, simple injuries can become deadly. Common sicknesses can be a death sentence. The mission of St. Theresa Hospital in Nzara is to turn those stories into testimonies of healing. To stop preventable deaths where treatment can save lives.”

Bringing Modern Medical Solutions to Improve Children’s Lives

We’re excited to share that with the help of generous donors, a brand new children’s ward – the Graham Pediatric Center – is now open at St. Theresa Hospital, to meet the extensive need for children’s health care in this region. The new center is a modern space that includes six high dependence units and an emergency room for children admitted with severe conditions and complications.

The newly launched pediatric center represents significant strides in available medical care slated to improve survival rates and quality of life for children in this highly underserved area. The expansion makes St. Theresa Hospital one of the largest and most well equipped medical centers in the country.

Dedication Event Celebrates Hope for Children

On August 1st, a dedication ceremony was held to celebrate the opening of the children’s ward and give thanks for the hope it will bring children in the area. Bishop Eduardo Hiiboro Kussala was in attendance to bless the facility, encouraging the hospital staff to “emulate Christ’s kindness and love for the sick” as they impact children’s lives.

Early Success Stories

The center officially opened its doors to its first pediatric patients on August 13th, when a young mother brought her three year-old girl, Sadia, and baby boy, Luak, to the children’s ward. Both were suffering from symptoms of malaria, a disease that claims thousands of lives each year in South Sudan. But the illness is curable if prompt and effective treatment is received.

Both Sadia and Baby Luak were admitted and immediately put on a protocol of antimalarial medications. The children responded very well to treatment. Within 48 hours, their symptoms were gone, and brother and sister were discharged to return home. The toddlers’ mother was extremely relieved and expressed her deep gratitude for saving her children from the grip of malaria.

You Make the Difference

The staff of St. Theresa Hospital Nzara and all of the Sudan Relief Fund team are thankful for our supporters who have made this expansion possible to serve more children. The hospital staff wishes to “sincerely thank our donors for facilitating the construction of this new pediatric center. The children in the region now have a second home to take care of them when they are sick. As it is written in Matthew 19:14, Jesus said ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.’”

These stories of Lives Saved are made possible because of generous donors like you who support facilities such as St. Theresa Mission Hospital Nzara, and provide medical care where children and many others would not have it.

Each year the hospital treats over 20,000 people in need, makes childbirth safer for mothers, performs lifesaving surgeries, provides critical care to premature babies, offers X-ray diagnostics and eye care clinics – services that are unheard of in this region. Thank you for saving lives and bringing hope into desolate places.

Drone Strikes on Civilian Targets in Nuba Kill at least 116 People, 46 Children

December 9, 2025

“Children should never pay the price of conflict”

Read the full story from Al Jazeera

The Sudan Doctors Network reported 116 people, including 46 children, were killed by drone strikes against civilian targets that struck a hospital, a government building, and a kindergarten facility in Kalogi – a locality inside the state of South Kordofan, Sudan.

A local Kalogi official told news sources the children were hit while attending pre-school.

The Sudan Doctors Network referred to the strikes as “deliberate suicide-drone attacks” specifically targeting civilian locations. A second follow-up strike killed civilians who had gathered in the area to provide assistance.

The death toll may be higher than reported due to communication blackouts that make it difficult to confirm the number of casualties, and the challenge of getting medical aid in to reach the wounded.

I WANT TO HELP

The number of displaced now passes the 14 million mark and the UN reports a staggering 30 million people in need of humanitarian aid. This represents an unprecedented number of people needing humanitarian assistance at one time in the global arena.

The war has been characterized by blatant violations of human rights and alleged crimes against humanity by both sides, a concern which continues to escalate. “Killing children in their school is a horrific violation of children’s rights,” said Sheldon Yett, UNICEF representative for Sudan, in a statement on Friday. Yett urged all parties to “stop these attacks immediately and allow safe, unhindered access for humanitarian assistance to reach those in desperate need.”

Survivors reported civilians were held at gunpoint and no men were allowed to leave el-Fasher. One young woman who escaped with her pregnant sister reported being stopped along the way when her sister went into labor. Her sister lied and said the newborn was a girl, but fighters put the baby to death upon discovering he was male. The young woman said her sister died then and there from the trauma of her horrific ordeal.

Sudan Relief Fund continues to ship emergency food and medicine to South Kordofan and the Nuba Mountains to aid refugee families suffering from widespread famine and cholera. While the region has been largely outside the war zone, concerns over the threat of danger escalate as fighting spreads into South Kordofan, placing it closer to Mother of Mercy Hospital and its staff led by Dr. Tom Catena. If you would like to help the hospital’s lifesaving work at this crucial time and aid desperate refugee families, you can send help today.

HELP DESPERATE FAMILIES

SRF 2025 Q4 Webinar

November 26, 2025