Zug, Switzerland. The world’s largest humanitarian crisis is unfolding before our very eyes, a historic catastrophe beyond imagination, yet the world remains silent. Recent atrocities from besieged El Fasher, Darfur, just made it to the media’s headlines. The city has been under siege for more than 16 months, and more than 260,000 civilians, including 130,000 children, have been trapped with no food or water. This horror is only one snapshot of a nationwide catastrophe. 30 million people in Sudan now need humanitarian assistance; 9.6 million are displaced within the country and nearly 15 million children are caught in the crossfire. Schools are shuttered and 14million school-aged children are out of class. Hunger is stalking the nation: 24.6 million people face acute food insecurity and 637,000 are at catastrophic levels of starvation. Yet the United Nations’ appeal is only 27 per cent funded and the crisis barely registers on the international radar. Sudan receives far less attention than conflicts in Ukraine or Gaza and is “not just forgotten, it’s ignored”. Amid this neglect, a young fintech scale‑up from Zug, Switzerland, has quietly made itself indispensable. AIDONIC, founded in 2019 by Severiyos Gabriel, has built a lifeline where none existed. AIDONIC has done what many thought impossible. Severiyos himself is no stranger to the humanitarian sector: he belongs to an ethnic minority that survived genocide, persecutions and displacements.

‍

In 2013, he established his own humanitarian NGO supporting war victims in the Middle East and Africa. Since then, his NGO has carried out over 500 aid programs and impacted more than 520,000 people – often at high risk. Three times, he survived direct hostilities while delivering humanitarian aid. Instead of retreating, he built a company, ensuring that no mother watches her child die from preventable causes. “We owe this to every child trapped in conflict zones and every mother walking for days to reach safety.” Explains Severiyos.AIDONIC’s approach is radically innovative and profoundly disruptive. AIDONIC powers an award-winning digital aid delivery platform that processes secure QR‑code vouchers and digital cash transfers to people in need in seconds instead of months. We meet beneficiaries with life-saving aid wherever they are, even in the hardest-to-reach areas. Every transaction is recorded on an immutable ledger, allowing donors and NGOs to track their funds in real time. With no need for expensive hardware or infrastructure, the system can operate even when banks are shuttered, roads are blocked and mobile networks are down. This is possible because AIDONIC digitally includes local actors, and by equipping them with AIDONIC’s platform, they become a powerful force of last-mile responders. AIDONIC has spent years building a network of local teams, local NGOs, wholesalers, vendors and financial agents not only in Sudan but globally. This digitally enabled and locally driven network allows AIDONIC to reach communities that traditional aid can no longer access. AIDONIC’s model is a turnkey service: international NGOs send aid delivery requests and funding, and AIDONIC handles everything from data entry to last-mile distribution.

‍

As a result, some of the world’s largest aid organisations have partnered with AIDONIC to deliver life-saving cash and vouchers. In just over a year, these partnerships have reached more than 150,000 people in Sudan, providing life-saving nutrition, medicine and dignity in places where humanitarian operations had ground to a halt.The human stories behind these numbers are powerful. When banks collapsed, AIDONIC’s vouchers kept neighbourhood markets functioning. In North Kordofan, where drone strikes severed supply routes, their digital cash transfers allowed women to buy flour, sugar and medicine locally. In Tawila, North Darfur, AIDONIC’s vendors remain open so displaced families from El Fasher could redeem vouchers for bread and water. Each voucher is a lifeline. But it is also a beacon: a reminder that somewhere, someone cares enough to invest in a technology that can break through chaos.AIDONIC’s staff and partners live this commitment every day. They cross front lines, negotiate checkpoints and work under shelling to ensure that aid reaches the most vulnerable. Many have narrowly escaped the same violence that claimed dozens of their colleagues. “We cannot stand by while children die for lack of bread.

‍

‍

”There is no reason this tragedy should continue unchecked. The humanitarian community has reached 13.5 million people so far this year, yet millions more remain beyond its grasp. The world’s largest humanitarian crisis cannot remain invisible. Governments and donors must act by advocating and funding aid operations fully, insisting on safe corridors, and leveraging innovative models like AIDONIC that can deliver aid quickly and transparently, wherever it's needed most.