War and weather have conspired this summer to place
three million people at grave risk of famine in Sudan—site of a savage 18-year civil war. Drought, coupled
with the government of Sudan’s cruel denial of international food relief to its opponents inside Sudan,
has created a humanitarian crisis.
The U.N. World Food Program warned in March that most Sudanese are eating just one meal a day because
of the parched conditions, and the dry season—April to October—has now arrived.
“Without new and substantial assistance from the international community,” a World Food Program
spokesman said, “food supplies will run out and we will face a crisis of enormous proportions.”
The famine only compounds the misery in Sudan where, since 1983, more than two million people have
died from the ruling National Islamic Front’s campaign to subjugate and Islamize the nation’s largely
black and Christian southern half. To that end, the government routinely bombs civilian targets, including
schools, hospitals, churches, and markets. It employs tools of terror that include mutilation, rape,
slavery, and mass murder.
Sudan’s staggering death toll—more than the combined loss of life in Chechnya, Kosovo, Bosnia,
Rwanda, and Somalia—will only spike upwards this summer unless aid arrives in time.
Kennedy, Christian Leaders, Urge Aid
That is why Dr. Kennedy joined other Christian leaders in urging President Bush in April to ask
Congress to provide $135 million in relief aid—to be provided outside the government of Sudan’s control.
Warning that three million people are at risk of death from drought and starvation, the letter declared, “We
must act NOW—in April or May. It is our moral obligation.” “We
as a nation have a chance to help alleviate destructive hunger and, through the policy your Administration
fashions and implements in the near term, help end a genocide,” said the letter.
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Dr. Kennedy, along with thousands of ministry friends, is also petitioning President Bush and
Secretary of State Colin Powell this month to use the diplomatic and nonmilitary levers at their disposal to
end slavery in Sudan. The petition implores the president and Secretary Powell to “use the full force of
your high position to bring every pressure possible upon the government of Sudan, for the sake of rescuing
the many Christians under siege in that country.”
Slaves are the human booty given to the military conscripts sent to fight for Sudan’s Islamic
rulers. Government of Sudan-sponsored raiding parties attack and plunder villages, killing the men, while
seizing women and children to be marched north into a life of slavery. Christian Solidarity International
(CSI), a human rights organization based in Switzerland, estimates there are over 100,000 women and children
held in slavery in northern Sudan.
Free the Slaves
Along with petitioning the president to help bring an end to slavery, Coral Ridge Ministries is
seeking to provide freedom to 1,000 people now held as human chattel in northern Sudan. You can join this
effort when you respond to a special communication from Dr. Kennedy that will arrive in the next several
days. Please consider the cruel plight faced by these victims of war and prayerfully do what you can to help
bring them freedom.
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