When Food Disputes Turn Deadly
Mother Saved After Near Fatal Stabbing
As the entire region of Sudan continues to battle food insecurity, sacks of relief food containing critical staples like maize or sorghum become more valuable than money. Unfortunately, they also become a prime target for robbery.
A combination of effects from the Sudanese civil war, with consecutive years of severe weather, devastated the food supply in this heavily agrarian region.
Mariam is a mother of seven children. Worrying about having enough to feed her children during this time of scarcity weighs heavily on her mind and heart. But the day she was bringing a sack of vital grains home to her family, she felt relief at knowing there would be enough, at least for a while.
She was not aware that someone else had followed her with the intent to steal her rations – a ruthless individual willing to go to criminal lengths to take it from her.
Mariam gratefully placed the sack in her home, and was attending to her children when the assailant made his move. Before she even knew what was happening, Mariam felt a hot and searing pain from a knife wound in her back. She fell to the floor, involuntarily sinking into unconsciousness.
Her children rushed to surround her and began to scream and cry. Neighbors heard, and came to check on her. Fortunately, someone wrapped up Mariam, still unconscious, and took her immediately to the local clinic in Tujur to get help.
But the stab wound was severe, and upon assessing the condition Mariam was in, the clinic in Tujur felt they couldn’t give her the extensive treatment she needed. They advised she be taken to Mother of Mercy Hospital as quickly as she could get there.
Mother of Mercy is a Sudan Relief Fund supported hospital directed by missionary doctor Tom Catena, who helped found the facility and served as its only surgeon for more than a decade. The hospital serves a massive area, being the only one of its kind for hundreds of miles, and it offers treatment that can’t be found anywhere else in the Nuba Mountains.
When Dr. Tom saw Mariam arrive, he knew she needed immediate intervention to save her life. At this point, Mariam had regained consciousness and was vomiting up blood. In her dazed state of mind, she thought of her children and wondered if she would ever go home to see them again. She worried how they would be taken care of without her.
Mariam was immediately ushered to the operating room for emergency surgery. She was very fortunate no vital organ or spinal nerve had been hit by the weapon. And that she didn’t bleed to death or turn septic before she made it to Mother of Mercy Hospital.
The surgical team gave Mariam heavy doses of medicine to stop infection and ease the pain, and she required many stitches. But this mother came through her operation successfully, and with the help of Dr. Tom and his dedicated staff, she would eventually be restored to full mobility. She would go home and be able to hold her children once again.
Mariam has now fully recovered and feels well. She has nothing but effusive thanks to those who helped her, from the neighbors who got her to the only place that could save her life, to Dr. Tom and his team at Mother of Mercy Hospital. She’s grateful to each of them for her being alive today, and her wish is that “God would bless them all and give them long lives.”
Mother of Mercy Hospital operates entirely on charitable donations to provide medical care in the Nuba Mountains. These stories of lives saved are possible because of compassionate donors who support the hospital’s lifesaving mission. Thank you for saving lives like Mariam’s and countless others. Because of you, the hospital treats over 75,000 patients and performs more than 2,000 surgeries every year.
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