Three nuns were caught in the crossfire of the civil war in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum resued by the Vulnerable People Project (VPP), a Catholic human rights organization in cooperation with other institutions.
The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), started fighting and on 29 April, Sister Christine, one of the nuns in danger and warned that she and two of her companions had been stranded in the middle of the fighting.
VPP and associated organizations not only rescued the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus – a diocesan congregation born in South Sudan – but they would have saved some 800 people trapped in the Sudanese capital.
On 21 May, Jason Jones, founder and president of the US-based VPP, reported that the three nuns had been safely evacuated and are currently in South Sudan.
“By the grace of God, they are now out of the country, in South Sudan, and will soon return to their Mother House, after receiving check-ups and controls at a hospital,” Jones reported in an interview with ACI Prensa on September 23. May.
“Almost 800 people were rescued that day, including nuns. Unfortunately, during the extraction, a volunteer from a collaborating organization was killed by sniper fire, ”he continued.
In images shared by VPP, you can see the nuns in good spirits and health. Also, through a video, one of the sisters, named Lucy, thanked God and the organizations involved in the rescue.
“We are grateful to God and VPP for rescuing us. We will never forget them. We will pray for you,” she added.
Jones said that the nuns were in an area where there was intense shooting and that the situation “was very terrifying” after being trapped.
“An American who often helps the sisters contacted my organization and asked if we could evacuate them, as we have been working with partners in Sudan for 20 years,” he said.
Jones immediately agreed and with his team they put together an evacuation plan, considering that two of the nuns were sick. “One didn’t have her diabetes medicine, so she was very weak, and another was fighting malaria.”
“They were old, frail, and the idea of a long journey, which ultimately took 72 hours from start to finish, was terrifying. So our team came and was with them for several days trying to comfort them. We bring them food, money, insulin. But then the building next door to where they were was knocked down by artillery fire, and I think this convinced them that they had to go with our team,” the VPP president recounted.
According to Jones, despite the fact that “it was a great challenge for them, the sisters were very brave and strong, because they were caught between armies accused of heinous crimes and genocide.”
“Despite their old age, their frailty, their illness, their frightening nature, they had a lot of strength to be evacuated to a safe place,” he said.
At least 550 civilians have been killed and nearly 5,000 injured since the April 15 conflict, according to recent data from Sudan’s Ministry of Health.