Women and girls bear the brunt of the crisis, facing increased violence, and severely limited access to protection and essential services. We, as faith leaders and faith-based organisations responding in Sudan, urge concrete, accountable commitments through the Berlin Conference and beyond to uphold human rights and protect civilians and frontline responders.
Sudanese local actors, including women, youth and mutual aid groups, are at the forefront of the response. Communities remain resilient, with long-standing solidarity networks. Among these, faith-based actors play a vital role through their trusted presence in vulnerable and hard-to-reach areas, delivering essential services such as food, health, nutrition and WASH, alongside livelihoods, spiritual care and psychosocial support to restore dignity and agency.
Governments from around the world increasingly recognise the importance of Sudan’s local responders. Yet funding still fails to reach local actors and mutual aid groups on the frontlines, including local faith actors, who have seen their ability to provide even essential services curtailed due to aid cuts, strained diaspora funding and the collapse of the banking system[1].
“While many faith leaders had to flee Sudan due to the insecurity and targeting, some of us stayed so that communities don’t lose their anchor and strength to keep going” (Religious leader in Sudan).
Urgent action is needed to bring protection to the Muslim and Christian leaders who remain in Sudan alongside protection for local responders facing intensified attacks and displacement. Strengthening Sudanese civil society and mutual aid groups is essential not only to address immediate needs, but also to lay the foundation for long-term, community-based recovery across the country.
As the conflict escalates and spreads unabated with the increasing use of drone attacks, the safety and scope of response for all actors is severely impacted. Health and education facilities have been hit, and our protection personnel report growing difficulties in accessing displacement camps due to the heightened insecurity.
The destruction and looting of humanitarian warehouses, convoys and offices has also resulted in vast losses of food and essential supplies. Starvation has been systematically used as a weapon of war in the conflict, leaving at least 6.7 million people in catastrophic levels of food insecurity. Widespread insecurity, including extreme levels of sexual violence, have made it increasingly difficult and dangerous for civilians – particularly women and girls – to search for food, water and basic services. Even where active conflict is reduced, such as Khartoum, the erosion of protection systems and the collapse of sustainable livelihoods continue to expose communities to heightened risks and prolonged hardship. But coupled with the conflict, drastic cuts by donors are diminishing longer-term gender-responsive cash for livelihoods and income generation.
We call for immediate ceasefire and peace. There is no military solution to the conflict nor to the suffering of the Sudanese population. We have three key messages to the international community as it continues high level discussions in Berlin this week:
- Keep civilians at the centre of peace and justice in Sudan. In the Berlin talks and their outcomes, we amplify the call of our faith partners for peace and justice in Sudan through civilian-led processes with women and youth at the forefront, and the involvement of trusted faith leaders. We call for a reversal of the exclusion of women and their full inclusion in ceasefire initiatives, humanitarian mediation and political dialogue.
- Increase financial support to local responders—including women, youth and faith actors. Donors must sustain both humanitarian and development funding, recognising Sudanese communities’ aspirations to build livelihoods, reduce reliance on food aid, and advance recovery and peacebuilding where possible. Amid global aid cuts and a focus on immediate relief, it is critical that fragile contexts like Sudan are not deprived of resources for early recovery and long-term resilience.
- We support the call of international NGOs responding in Sudan for united international diplomacy for an end to attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure – including IDP sites, medical facilities, places of worship and humanitarian personnel – and allow rapid, safe, unhindered, and sustained humanitarian access and assistance. This must include prioritising sexual based violence protection mechanisms with support to community-based prevention and protection, including spiritual care and psychological support.
ACT Alliance, Caritas Internationalis and Islamic Relief Worldwide
[1] DEVEX, April 2026: Volunteers struggle to feed displaced Sudanese amid US aid cuts;
Collaborative Futures, GISA, Sudan Mutual Aid Coalition: How Sudan’s Emergency Response Rooms are Rewriting Aid; Sawdana Campaign: https://adeela.org/sawdana
See also: EU support to local actors in Sudan
