“Hunger Killed Her”

Rush a Year End Gift of Emergency Food to the Nuba Mountains

Raous and her mother survived many hardships together. Growing up in the town of Kadugli, Sudan, Raous remembers ducking into shelters with her mother during bombing raids when she was a child. It was the early 2000’s and she was in the throes of Sudan’s previous and lengthy civil war.

For a while there was peace. But when Raous was a teenager, the bombardment happened again. Bombing raids killed most of her siblings. Yet she and her mother always survived, sometimes pulled out from beneath rubble that had buried them.

Now a wife and mother, Raous finds herself fleeing from her home once again. The relentless fighting that has spread across Sudan in the last year displaced her, along with her mother and three children. Forced to leave her husband behind, Raous undertook a perilous journey on foot, crossing a mountain pass in the Nuba Mountains to reach a refugee camp. She made this courageous trek to bring her family to safety from the war that now ravages her homeland.

Cruel ending. Raous’ mother survived years of air raid bombing strikes, but hunger ultimately took her life.

They made it to the refugee camp only to find, like elsewhere in the nation, there was no food here. Raous’ mother grew weak. Doctors at a nearby clinic said she was suffering from dehydration and hunger. In the evening, Raous felt her mother’s chest to see if she was still breathing. Sadly, she no longer was.

“After she’d survived years of air strikes,” her daughter mourned, “hunger killed her.”

Fast Facts on the Hunger Crisis in Nuba  

• 25.6 million people in Sudan face starvation-level hunger
• Over one million people have fled to the Nuba Mountains to escape the war
• 3 million people in Nuba risk imminent starvation
• The war brought farming to a halt causing a nationwide food shortage 

Over 3 million people in the Nuba Mountains face dying of starvation in the “world’s worst humanitarian crisis on our planet.”

“The situation is dreadful”

Dr. Louis Perrinjaquet, MD, a Sudan Relief Fund partner, physician, and humanitarian from Colorado, is no stranger to the plight in the Nuba Mountains. For more than a decade, Dr. Louis has helped bring medicine and supplies to this forgotten region.His friend and colleague, Dr. Tom Catena, medical director at Mother of Mercy Hospital in the Nuba Mountains, reported that “the situation is dreadful,” and humanitarian conditions are the worst he’s ever seen in his 16 years in Sudan. Mother of Mercy is one of the few hospitals still open during a war that has devastated most of the country.

Dr. Louis is well known in his home county of Summit, not just for providing compassionate medical care to his patients, but also for traveling to some of the neediest places on the globe, including Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, and Sudan.

Each year Dr. Louis (right) delivers crucial medicines to Dr. Tom (left) at this remote hospital, that now serves at the center of Nuba’s massive famine and refugee crisis.

“My parents inspired me at a young age to follow the Golden Rule – help whenever there were neighbors in need,” he said.

Each year he can be found in Sudan, bringing medicine, essential hospital supplies, and his own medical expertise to this remote place. Dr. Louis often volunteers at Mother of Mercy Hospital, sleeping on a cot outside Dr. Tom’s hut, rising early each morning to work side by side with Dr. Tom at the hospital. Both men share a deep care for the people of Nuba.

“Dr. Tom is the living embodiment of ‘it’s better to give than to receive,’” Dr. Louis says.

Over two million children are refugees in the war’s brutal wake – a staggering number to comprehend.

“We’re expecting a pretty bleak year”

Having seen conditions in the Nuba Mountains firsthand, Dr. Louis knows how dependent this region is on resources supplied completely through Sudan Relief Fund partners and donors.

Right now the situation is more urgent than ever, because of the terrible famine sweeping across Sudan and the Nuba Mountains, as well as the raging civil war. 

“Sudan is the greatest humanitarian tragedy in the world,” said Dr. Tom. “We’re expecting a pretty bleak year.”

Malnutrition is rampant, and famine has been declared in Nuba. Three humanitarian groups warned in a joint statement, “We cannot be clearer: Sudan is experiencing a starvation crisis of historic proportions. And yet, the silence is deafening.”

A child dies every day and every hour in Sudan’s tragic refugee camps. More will starve without immediate help.

But these courageous doctors refuse to be silent, and continue to work together to help the suffering people of Nuba – children and families with nowhere to turn, with nothing to eat, sick or injured from war and famine, dying on a daily basis. He and Dr. Tom will not turn their back on this tragedy.

This Nutrition-Packed Supplement Saves Lives

To combat the catastrophic hunger crisis, Sudan Relief Fund is funding a shipment of a nutritional supplement called Plumpy’Nut used by doctors and NGOs worldwide to save severely malnourished children from starvation.

It is a paste made of peanuts, sugar, vegetable oil and milk powder, supplemented with essential vitamins and minerals, to treat children suffering acute malnutrition. It needs no refrigeration and has a long shelf life for easy use in remote areas.

Your partnership will continue to save severely malnourished children and families from starving by receiving lifesaving Plumpy’Nut packets. People like Raous, who already lost her mother, and now struggles to keep her three children alive. Together we’re making a difference.

Hope amid tragedy. Plumpy’Nut means the difference between survival or starvation for children – the forgotten victims of Sudan’s war.

SUBHEADING:  Please Act Now

Hundreds of thousands of helpless families flocking to the Nuba Mountains could die from the famine affecting the entire region. The number of displaced in Sudan has now crossed the 11 million mark, with the UN Secretary General calling it “an utter humanitarian catastrophe.” More than half the displaced are women, and more than a quarter are children under age five. These figures are staggering.

Your gift to help send more supplies of lifesaving Plumpy’Nut to malnourished children makes an incredible difference. If you give before midnight, December 31, your gift may be fully tax deductible. More importantly, your gift will save someone from starvation this year.

A lethal combination of war and drought combined to create a famine of epic proportions across Sudan. We’re fighting to save starving children.

Sincerely,

Neil A. Corkery President