How to pray for Sudan:
- Pray for healing and life in Sudan: workers on the ground shared that many people have been sick and dying suddenly without any apparent reason. Please pray for supernatural healing and miracles for the people in Sudan so people can know the Lord.
- Pray for medical workers and supplies: many people are dying. Their only diagnosis is typhoid, but the people do not have the proper medicine. Please pray for God’s provision to bring the medical personnel and supplies needed to Sudan.
- Pray for tools to share the Word of God in Sudan: workers on the ground shared that the audio Bible device has been a great blessing, and the Word of God has reached many people. There was a testimony of one man taking the audio Bible device and using it at his workplace. The people around him listened to the Word of God and started asking questions. The man began to explain God’s word, His work, and His miracles, and many people asked for the audio Bible device to hear the Word of God.
- Pray for protection and strength for the laborers in Sudan: the infrastructure and daily necessities (water and food) are limited in Sudan. Please pray for the believers on the ground to be strengthened to do the good work He has called us to do.
Sudan gained independence in 1956, one of the largest countries in Africa and the Arab world, with a population of forty million. Sudan has been racked by civil wars and military coups every few years. Although a military coup in 1969 overthrew a democratically elected government and brought Islamists to power, Fernandez said that Sudan, “unlike other countries in the Arab world,” has a long history of democratic rule. Moreover, comprehensive peace accords in 2005 brought stability to the country and eventually led to an independent South Sudan.
In 2019, hundreds of thousands of Sudanese took to the streets to protest the dictatorship of the Islamist, Omar Bashir, who “promoted [an] Islamist revolution throughout Africa” and welcomed bin Laden and al Qaeda into Sudan. Despite his anti-Americanism, Bashir feared U.S. power. His placement on a terrorism list and the imposition of U.S. sanctions on the country prevented him from conducting international business. They caused him to later “pragmatically [work] with the Americans.”
As of last week, Arabnews reported that Armed raids in a region of South Sudan plagued by ethnic clashes have forced around 30,000 civilians to flee their homes. The UN’s emergency response agency said Thursday as international partners demanded an end to the violence.
To read more go to: UN: 30,000 flee ethnic violence in South Sudan (December 29, 2022)
In the framework of the Trump Administration’s Abraham Accords, Sudan was removed from the terrorism list and had its banking economic profile normalized, thereby giving it access to the World Bank and international loans. Trump also demanded that Sudan agree to pay $400 million in reparations to the victims of the U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa. Those attacks were “planned and carried out from Sudan” by al Qaeda.
Fernandez said, “Sudanese history is littered with all kinds of peace accords, political agreements, and arrangements that have been subverted, usually by the military.” Because of Sudan’s strategic location by the waters of the Nile, its abundance of minerals and natural resources, and great agricultural potential, it is eyed by foreign powers. Egypt, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Russia, China, and the U.S. vie to play a “political, military, economic, or ideological role” in Sudan’s future.
To read more go to: Sudan at the Crossroads at Middle East Forum (December 9, 2022)
The article highlighted the U.S.’s need to continue to elicit counterterrorism cooperation from Khartoum, block Russia from establishing a naval base on the Red Sea, and hinder Sudan from drawing closer to China. Europe’s priority is to continue benefiting from Sudan’s prevention of the northern migration of African refugees and their illegal entry into the European continent.
As an emerging country, it is in Sudan’s best interest to seek good relations with all its neighbors and foreign powers to stabilize its economy. Fernandez said that Sudan “is a country in transition” that can go “one of many different ways.” He hopes that it will be the one that is “open to the world and to the West.”