Sudan Rangers Respond to the Siege of Kadugli
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- 10 min read
Sudan is now widely recognized as the worst food insecurity and displacement crisis in the world. Millions face starvation and violence, as two ruthless militaries, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Force (RSF), vie for power and resources. A joint military coup conducted by the SAF and RSF in 2021 destroyed the fragile democratic government of Sudan. Without a unifying enemy, the two forces were left to vie for control of the country and their rivalry erupted into an open civil war in 2023. While neither side has proven that they can decisively gain the upper hand, both sides have certainly proven they are capable of targeting, starving, and committing atrocities against civilians across the country.
Due to the war, about 30.4 million people in Sudan now need some form of humanitarian aid, more than the entire population of Australia. Of those, 21 million people are facing severe hunger, the largest hunger crisis ever recorded in a single country. About one out of every three Sudanese people has been forced from their home. The sheer number of people displaced and suffering in Sudan is more than the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine combined. From what we saw on the ground, this suffering looks like children swollen from malnutrition, women widowed, sons pulled from the street and forced into uniform, men executed without trial, civilians fleeing across scrubland in blistering heat only to jam into tent cities of IDP camps, clinics without antibiotics or medicine, and families surviving by eating leaves. Community leaders repeatedly emphasized to us that the crisis is worsening, not stabilizing.
Within this catastrophe, Kadugli, the capital of South Kordofan in the Nuba Mountains, stands out as a place of particularly horrific suffering. The city is held by the SAF, and the RSF has thrown much of their military strength into an effort to take the city. For months, the civilians inside the city have undergone both siege and occupation conditions, enduring threats presented by the occupying SAF, aerial attacks by the RSF, and hunger. Food scarcity is so severe that Kadugli was classified as an IPC Phase 5 famine, the highest level on the international famine scale.
The SAF have proved brutal occupiers. Former residents we talked to described cases where the SAF killed civilian men on the suspicion of aiding resistance forces. One woman told us that young boys were being hidden because of the risk of being conscripted into the SAF if they were caught on the streets. Many local community leaders in the Nuba Mountains claim the SAF prevents civilians from fleeing, as their presence around military positions is useful for the government’s messaging when under attack. Everyone in the city lives in fear of the intense bombing campaign of the RSF.
The war itself is layered and complex here: the SAF, the RSF, and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) resistance are all battling for control within the region, while civilians remain trapped between frontlines, collapsing healthcare systems, and shrinking humanitarian access. Several widows described going months at a time barely leaving their houses, not knowing the condition of their neighbors. Elderly and children have perished from hunger in great numbers within the city. Mothers described to us the heartrending fact that families attempting to flee often move one by one in different directions over the mountains surrounding the city to avoid detection, with link-up taking months, if it happens at all. Into this environment, our team moved with a purpose: to help the people closest to the catastrophe in Kadugli with the gospel, medical care, training, and humanitarian support.
Our ability to move into this space existed because of FBR’s history in the region. During the height of the SAF bombing campaigns and ground offensives of 2014 and 2015, the Eubank family and FBR’s ethnic leaders including Monkey, Eliya, and Ray Kaw, joined with local chaplains and soldiers to assist displaced civilians under attack, help train local Ranger teams, and document attacks against Nuban civilians and churches. In June 2025, in response to the renewed threat to the Nuba Mountains, a small FBR HQ team returned, pushing into the isolated and remote areas of the northern Nuba Mountains, a region flooded with displaced people, to conduct medical and chaplain training, support IDP communities, and share the gospel with frontline communities. In April and May of 2026, we had the opportunity to go again. Our history of presence in the hard places in the mountains opened the door for access to the frontline areas and displacement corridors surrounding the battle for Kadugli.
We departed from our headquarters and moved through Ethiopia and South Sudan before flying north up the White Nile River valley aboard a DC-3, landing in the last rough outpost before the Nuba Mountains. From there, we loaded into a Land Cruiser and crossed into Sudan itself, moving at night through a region torn by ongoing tribal violence. On the movement in, we passed multiple burned villages. In three tense encounters, armed SPLM-N patrols attempting to restore order to the area suddenly emerged from the darkness, aiming AK-47s at our vehicles as they challenged us, before standing down once they recognized our escorts, members of the chaplain group. This was the beginning of challenging travel towards Kadugli, with each movement bringing us closer to the crisis. The places we wanted to go are not easy for outsiders to access due to the intensity of the conflict. What opened the door everywhere we went was the presence of the chaplains we worked together with.
The chaplains we worked alongside are part of a unique ministry that traces back to a request made by SPLM founder and freedom fighter John Garang, who was fundamental in creating a free South Sudan. Recognizing the danger of armed movements operating without moral accountability, Garang requested that Christian ministers be trained to serve among the troops and civilian leadership. In response, Far Reaching Ministries in Nimule, South Sudan, began training chaplains through an intensive one-year program focused on scripture, pastoral care, reconciliation, leadership, and humanitarian service.
Today, these chaplains are integrated alongside SPLM-N structures throughout the Nuba Mountains, but they repeatedly emphasize that their ultimate allegiance is not to any armed movement, tribe, or political cause, but first to God and to the protection of human life according to biblical conviction and international human rights principles. They preach in barracks, pray over wounded fighters, counsel grieving families, mediate disputes between commanders and civilians, and openly share the gospel with Muslims and Christians alike. Several chaplains in both Sudan and South Sudan have been killed by their own side after attempting to intervene to stop abuses against civilians, looting, or mistreatment of women. Despite the risks, they continue to move freely across frontline areas where few others can travel safely. They receive no salary for their work, living instead through the hospitality of local communities and churches. Many have memorized huge portions of scripture and are deeply respected by frontline soldiers, community elders, and senior generals alike for their courage, integrity, and willingness to suffer alongside the people they serve.
During the first phase of our mission, we worked together with chaplain leaders to train local community leaders to serve their people on the frontlines. In temperatures often exceeding 110°F (43°C), medics, NGO officials, police, chaplains, and other frontline personnel were trained in casualty care, bleeding control, humanitarian reporting, evacuation, and spiritual first aid. Many students had personally watched friends bleed to death without the ability to help them; others had watched friends lose their senses due to the horrors of the frontline. Buy-in for the training was strong.
Every morning, our column of trainees ran through villages chanting cadence while barefoot children sprinted with us through the dust. During the day the students trained on tourniquets, casualty evacuation, and trauma care under the brutal heat. At night, conversations shifted from tactics to forgiveness and revenge, trauma, and faith. Men spoke openly about massacres they had survived, burying friends, and wrestling with hatred. The chaplains taught openly about Christ’s command to love enemies. The teaching was deeply relevant, with this war surrounding them.
Despite exhaustion from the training and conditions, the students remained remarkably joyful, disciplined, and united in purpose. By the conclusion of the course, 24 new Free Sudan Rangers graduated in a ceremony conducted by key civil authorities.
Then the second phase of the mission began as we moved toward the siege of Kadugli. Our team, including the newly trained Rangers, pushed north and west through Thobo, Korrongo, Absunuun, Katcha, Kulolo, Otara, and finally toward the mountain positions overlooking Kadugli itself. The deeper we moved toward the frontline, the more visible the effects of the siege became.
As we traveled we stopped along the route to lead five Good Life Club programs, where we performed songs and dances, distributed relief supplies and funds, offered medical care, and encouraged thousands with the gospel. All throughout the mission we prayed with and trained local leaders, emergency responders, and soldiers. Every person our team helped or encouraged was followed by another person in need; the scale of the crisis dwarfed our resources.
At Thobo IDP Camp, nearly 70,000 displaced civilians lived in straw shelters with almost no sanitation, little water, and minimal food. Women described surviving for months on leaves. Elderly people and children were dying from the effects of starvation even within the relative safety of the camp itself. The nearest clinics operated with almost no medicine while doctors lacked food even for admitted patients. Medical workers attempted to function without antibiotics, fuel, nutrition supplies, or evacuation capability. In many of the areas where we worked, healthcare had effectively collapsed.
After one large relief program in Thobo, where our team shared the gospel, prayed with displaced families, and conducted a humanitarian distribution for more than 1,000 people, a large crowd continued walking alongside us as we left the program area. As we moved through the camp paths surrounded by the crowd, we came upon a young woman named Angelina lying moaning on a mat on the ground. One of her friends called out to us and anxiously explained that Angelina had escaped from Kadugli in extremely poor condition and had been lying there for a long time without anyone in the camp able to help her. She was suffering from severe malnutrition, fever, and full-body edema and appeared close to death. While the crowd gathered around, our medics immediately stopped to treat her and assess her condition there on the ground. We then carried her into the Land Cruiser and evacuated her to a clinic where she could receive food and medical care. Beyond the immediate evacuation, the team also helped arrange support for her continued treatment and long-term care.
Angelina’s condition was not unusual. Again and again throughout the mission, we encountered civilians in similarly critical condition who had gone days or weeks without meaningful medical care. Whenever possible, the team stopped to treat, transport, and assist the most urgent cases we encountered along the frontline and displacement routes despite limited medical resources and transport capability.
From Thobo, we continued west toward Korrongo and Absunuun. Our vehicles rolled through mountain passes and dusty plains into camps packed with newly displaced civilians from the Kadugli fighting, one mountain range away from the city. Massive crowds gathered on rocky hillsides beneath sparse trees waiting for the programs to begin. Most were Muslims. Nearly all had the same story: hunger, fear, and escape through the mountains.
Amid all of it, the openness to the gospel was extraordinary. At one camp near Kadugli, more than 1,200 people gathered along the mountainside as the gospel was preached. When the program ended, hundreds surged forward asking for prayer, shaking hands, and thanking the team for coming so close to the fighting to stand with them. At another camp, a displaced Muslim man approached quietly off to the side after the program. After hearing the gospel preached by our team, he wanted to make sure we knew he had decided to follow Jesus Christ, and he felt a lightness and joy he hadn’t felt before.
As we moved deeper toward the frontline, we as a team did all we could to arrange humanitarian distributions for the most vulnerable with the limited resources we had. Widows received sorghum, lentils, and salt. Orphans had school fees paid. Clinics and schools received financial assistance. In one distribution, widows of Christian pastors stood beside widows of RSF fighters, waiting in the same line for food. The war had taken from all of them equally.
The deeper we pushed, the more the mission shifted directly onto the frontline itself. Near Kulolo and Deloco, we brought food, soap, salt, and medical support directly to the people living around outposts near Kadugli. We walked roads covered in landmines alongside chaplains and conducted lifesaving casualty first aid training under the cover of scrub brush and baobab trees. Together we trained on tourniquets, casualty evacuation, and trauma care. We ate the same simple sorghum meals as our friends in these areas, slept in the same heat, and moved through the same harsh terrain as they did each day. The chaplains repeatedly emphasized that helping in the Nuba Mountains meant suffering alongside the people, not remaining distant from them.
An unforgettable moment occurred crouching high above the plains of Kadugli near Deloco. From that mountain, the size of the crisis unfolded beneath us. Around us stood chaplains who had spent years burying friends and praying for and protecting their people. Kadugli sat beneath in the haze. Smoke hung across the plains as the chaplains pointed out evacuation routes and villages emptied by the fighting. Then Chaplain Simon lifted his hands over the land and prayed for peace, protection, and salvation in Sudan.
Even roadside encounters reflected the complexity of the war. At one point, our convoy stopped beside stranded RSF fighters in what appeared to be a potentially dangerous encounter. Instead of escalating, the team stepped forward, treated a wounded fighter, distributed gospel bracelets, and prayed with the men. Later, after our own vehicle broke down in extreme heat, these and other fighters stopped to give us water and help repair the truck.
The chaplains prayed with everyone they encountered, regardless of tribe or faction. Again and again throughout the mission, we saw ordinary Sudanese believers choosing courage over fear, forgiveness over revenge, and unity over division.
By mission’s end, our team had shared the gospel with over 4,000 people, most of them Muslim, treated more than 50 patients, trained over 217 chaplains, medics, and local leaders in lifesaving care, and conducted multiple distributions to widows, orphans, clinics, and displaced communities.
In one of the harshest places on earth, the church in the Nuba Mountains remains alive and advancing. “Cush will hasten to stretch out her hands to God” (Psalm 68:31). Christianity has a long history in Sudan, whose ancient name is Cush, and yet most of the country does not know Jesus. Through generations of persecution Sudanese believers have continued to pray that their countrymen would "stretch out their hands to God." Standing above Kadugli beside Sudanese chaplains, watching Muslims, Christians, animists, Nuban tribesmen, Arabs, widows, and fighters, respond openly to Christ, we felt the profound awe of witnessing a promise of God being fulfilled before us.
Please pray for the people of Sudan. Pray that every man, woman, and child would have their needs met, know peace, and see the promises of God fulfilled through Jesus.
Thank you and God bless you,
Caleb and the Free Burma Rangers
