{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://chrissmith.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=415160", "CatholicVote article on Smith's upcoming House Foreign Affairs Africa Subcommittee hearing on Sudan'Rep. Chris Smith calls attention to bloodshed in Sudan'", "2025-12-09", "2025", "2025-12", "Republican", "House", "NJ", "Christopher H. Smith", "S000522", "chrissmith.house.gov", "chrissmith", "https://chrissmith.house.gov/news/documentquery.aspx", "scraper", "By Elise Winland\n\nPublished December 9, 2025\n\nRep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., is spotlighting Sudan\u2019s deepening civil war and the mounting atrocities against civilians ahead of a new congressional hearing on the conflict.\n\nSmith, a Catholic who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, will lead his 17th congressional hearing on Sudan Dec. 11. He said the scale of mass violence since the Sudanese Civil War began in 2023 demands urgent action from U.S. officials and the international community.\n\n\u201cSince 2023, as many as 18,000 civilian deaths have been committed in Sudan \u2014 with estimates as high as 150,000 \u2014 and more than 10 million people have been displaced as a direct result of the Sudanese Civil War,\u201d Smith said in a statement. \u201cThe catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Sudan \u2014 which includes the systemic killings, rapes, abductions, detentions, and child soldier recruitments of innocent civilians \u2014 demands our attention.\u201d\n\nAs CatholicVote previously reported, the war erupted in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) over a stalled plan to integrate the RSF into the national army.\n\nAdobe Stock\n\nThe upcoming hearing will review the current status of the war, the widespread crimes attributed to the Sudanese government and armed groups, and the deepening humanitarian emergency facing civilians.\n\nThe first panel will feature Deputy Assistant Secretary Vincent D. Spera of the State Department\u2019s Bureau of African Affairs. A second panel will include Samaritan\u2019s Purse Vice President Ken Isaacs, Family Research Council President and U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom Vice Chair Tony Perkins, and Human Rights Watch Deputy Washington Director Nicole Widdersheim.\n\nChurch leaders have also raised alarms over the conflict. In two appeals last month \u2014 during his Nov. 2 Angelus address and again in a Nov. 16 social media post \u2014 Pope Leo XIV urged prayer for victims of violence in Sudan and highlighted the persecution of Christians there.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T20:09:11Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://chrissmith.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=415160"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.0536410845816135, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}