Category Archives: South Sudan

by nickharrop | October 29, 2012 · 11:16 am

What life’s really like in refugee camps

Samia Hussein

Catherine Mahony, one of our Emergency Response Officers, writes:

I often feel that life in refugee camps is misrepresented. I don’t like the images of camps we see on television, in which people always look sad and helpless. I know why we are only shown the horror: it’s undeniably awful that people have had to run from their homes because they’re being bombed, that they’ve had to walk for a month to find safety, that they’re tired and sick and don’t have enough food. But that isn’t the whole picture.

I met Samia Hussein because the beautiful stoves she was selling made me stop in my tracks. We were in the marketplace in Yusuf Batil refugee camp in South Sudan, home to more than 35,000 people who have fled fighting in Blue Nile State in Sudan. Samia was selling portable, energy-efficient stoves that were made from donkey dung, for about 50p each.

When I approached her, she was stirring a big pot of okra stew that she was planning to sell that night, but she smiled and welcomed me into her shelter. She told me that she, her husband and her two sons had fled from their village last September. “We were being bombed,” she said and mimed the Antonov planes that had roared overhead. Since then, the family had travelled on foot, with almost no possessions, before arriving in Batil this June.

I asked Samia how she was finding life in Batil. Given how difficult I knew things were in the camp, I was surprised by her response: “It’s good,” she said, smiling. Continue reading →

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by nickharrop | July 12, 2012 · 9:30 am

Voices from South Sudan: Morri

A boy celebrates independence a year ago. “One day we shall be a happy nation,” says Morri.

Morri Francis, a journalist for Catholic radio station Radio Bakhita in South Sudan, has been blogging for CAFOD for the last two years. This post first appeared on the Guardian website.

I would have graduated from university in 2011, but because of the separation of South Sudanfrom Sudan, the University of Juba, where I study, did not reopen until earlier this year. I thought this time nothing would stop me from finishing my course as I have only one year left. Unfortunately, fighting between students resulted in the closure of the university againin March. Why am I so unlucky? I work hard every day to raise my university tuition fees so that I can graduate and get a well-paid job and settle down. I just have to be patient.

Since independence, Juba has gone from good to bad because prices have skyrocketed due to an increase in the population and some economic problems since South Sudanese in Sudan and other parts of the world are returning, and the rate of development has slowed down. I used to wake up and see new development, which is not the case nowadays. Maybe that is due to the closure of the oil pipeline that passes through Khartoum and the high rate of corruptionin the Juba government.

Continue reading →

Voices from South Sudan: Susanna

After decades of civil war, hundreds of thousands of people have returned to the newly independent South Sudan. We are working with our partner Caritas Juba and with local churches to support returnees as they rebuild their lives – providing food, water and essential goods like sheets, soap and mosquito nets.

Susanna Alor, a mother of two who is blind, was forced to leave the town of Abyei because of fighting. She is now living in Agok, where a local priest is distributing emergency supplies we helped to provide. She shares her story:

My situation is bad because I can’t see—a human being is an eye.

I lost four relatives in the war. In Abyei, my cousin took care of me. When he gave me money, I had a little business. I’d get supplies from Khartoum and make foul [bean soup] and peanuts and sell it to the people.

I heard the big guns. It was terrifying. I took my children’s hands and said, “Hold my hands and we’ll go together.” I came to Agok with the help of Catholic sisters.

My son is ten. Whenever he saw a plane he’d run under a tree to hide.

Whenever I have a problem, Father Biong stands by me. He’s a caring person. We’re so grateful to him. He and his volunteers gave us plastic sheeting, kangas, soap, and mosquito nets.

If we hadn’t had the plastic sheeting we would have got wet. If the sheet is well tied so the wind doesn’t blow and tear it, it will last a year. A lot of children could have gotten sick if not for the sheeting.

Father Biong and Father Carlo help me when I am feeling bad. I went to Father Carlo once and he said, “The blind and the seeing have the same body. Maybe there’s a reason for what you are going through.”

South Sudan: one year on>>

Please pray for peace in Sudan and South Sudan>>

South Sudan – what does the second year hold in store?

It is unlikely that either country wants (or could afford) to return to full-scale conflict.

CAFOD’s Rob Rees writes:

So what does the second year of life of the new nation of South Sudan hold in store? In April, the African Union, which has been helping to try to resolve the outstanding issues from the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and which had become extremely frustrated by the lack of progress, issued a roadmap with a three month deadline for resolving the outstanding differences. This was subsequently endorsed by the United Nations Security Council in Resolution 2046 on 4^th May. So an important milestone will fall in August when the deadline runs out: will the two countries be able to reconcile their differences and will oil begin to flow again?

Pray for peace in Sudan and South Sudan>>

If the deadline is not met, further, unspecified, measures are threatened but it is not clear what these would be. South Sudan’s government is likely to run out of money at around that time, if not before, which could trigger further internal dissent across the country. For all the skirmishing that has gone on between the two nations’ armies in recent months, it is unlikely that either of them wants (or could afford) to return to a full scale conflict, lending greater poignancy to the AU led process.

Continue reading →

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by nickharrop | July 5, 2012 · 12:32 pm

Celebrations for South Sudan?

CAFOD’s Rob Rees writes:

9 July 2012 will be the first birthday of the global family’s newest nation, the Republic of South Sudan. But what kind of party will they be having? Is there reason to have any party at all?

Pray for peace in Sudan and South Sudan>>

The Republic of South Sudan was born out of more than 40 years of conflict between the north and south of what had been Africa’s largest country. The colonial shortcut of trying to unite two regions which had vast historical and cultural differences left a legacy of bitterness and mistrust that proved to be irreconcilable.

The talks which concluded in 2005 with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) included the option of a referendum on self-determination, a step embraced with open arms by Southern Sudanese. 98% of those who voted in the January 2011 elections opted for separation. Thus, just 6 months later, the new state came into being at a boisterous ceremony in Juba: flags were lowered and raised and promises of good neighbourliness pledged. Celebrations ensued across the whole of South Sudan – a vast, landlocked area where the majority of the population are dependent on agricultural and pastoral skills handed down though many generations. Continue reading →

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