SRF 2020 3RD Quarter Newsletter
SRF 2019 4Q Newsletter
Nurse Noeleen Feeds and Teaches the Hungry, Thanks to You
Nurse Noeleen Loughran has been delivering emergency healthcare to the South Sudanese refugees for many years, but her assistance doesn’t end there. In fact, she has also turned to farming to help produce food for the refugees.
When Noeleen began her missionary work on the border of South Sudan in a small village called Koboko, she bought a small, 4-acre plot of farmland. Because of the generosity of our donors, she was able to purchase a plow and an ox.
The land Nurse Noeleen bought is rich in nutrients and healthy soil, making it an excellent source for food. When she’s not helping refugees with their medicinal needs, she’s working on the farm, not only cultivating fresh food, but also teaching others how to farm. She hopes to teach the refugees and villagers crucial farming skills so that they can become more self—sufficient and less reliant on outside food sources in the future.
Nurse Noeleen’s farm has proven to be a blessing. She’s now able to feed people with the crops she and her team have grown, and with the help of generous donors, her hope is to buy more land and expand the farm even further in the future.
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Covid-19 Hits Sudan Displacement Camps; Return Pressure on the Rise
The Covid-19 pandemic continues to spread across the world, and the South Sudan region has been hit particularly hard by the disease. Out of the six UN-protected displacement camps (known as Protection of Civilians sites), two have seen outbreaks of the coronavirus, prompting UN officials to encourage camp residents to return to their homes.
However, these displaced refugees, totaling at approximately 190,000, do not feel safe returning to their war-torn homes due to the threat of violence. In the last month alone, more than 200 people were violently killed in clashes in eastern Jonglei.
Displacement camp residents are now stuck in an unusual struggle: if they stay at the camps, not only do they risk being exposed to the virus, but an attitude of foreign hostility has also gripped the camp and caused many people to look down on the South Sudanese and blame them for the outbreak (even though the first cases were among UN international staff). On the other hand, they can’t return home for fear of violence from raiders, bandits, and other warring forces.
For now, it seems that the UN is doing what it can to mitigate the risk of Covid spread as well as violence in the displacement camps, but only time will tell if their measures prove effective.
Read more here:
https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/analysis/2020/06/01/South-Sudan-coronavirus-UNMISS-conflict-peace
South Sudan Seminarians Thank Donors for Generosity
Times are tough in South Sudan and the new circumstances surrounding the pandemic leave even more uncertainty for so many of the people in the region. Sudan Relief Fund continues to provide where we can and provide a glimmer of hope to those who benefit through our support. We recently received a letter of thanks from a seminarian at the St. Mary Seminary in Juba, South Sudan. He has extended thanks and gratitude to our donors on behalf of all the seminarians and the sponsored children at the local Comboni Boys Primary School. Thanks to the generosity of our donors, they are able to receive an education and hopefully leave their lives of poverty behind. See an excerpt of the letter below:
I am glad to take this golden chance to thank the Almighty God for giving us South Sudanese people the donors to rescue us from our ignorance and poverty.
I thank the brothers of St. Martin de Porres who have connected us to these donors, and we pray that they should not be discouraged in supporting us or stopping us on the way of education leading to dropout, since most of us have no way to support both in kind.
We also thank Brother James Othembi from St. Martin De Porres congregation for his struggle for us, especially we South Sudanese. May the Lord bless him and bless our donors in South Sudan so that they may continue supporting us in kind with school fees and also basic needs.
God first in our struggle
Your faithful in Christ,
Seminarian Francis Hutof Emphe
Sisters Fight to Reduce Coronavirus Impact in South Sudan
As coronavirus continues to spread around the world, medical professionals, scientists, and even people of faith are doing all they can to lessen the impact it has on the community. One group known as the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, has been working diligently to raise awareness of the virus’s impact on economically poorer countries, including South Sudan.
In South Sudan, where diseases such as malaria, dysentery, and cholera run rampant, it is easy for coronavirus to become the next widespread pandemic. Most people have to walk more than half-a-mile in order to access clean water, making proper hand-washing a near impossibility. There is also the case of children sharing beds and classrooms, which can result in sickness spreading much more easily.
The Sisters hope to instill a sense of calm among the community, and they wish to leverage institutional resources for people on the ground as the virus continues to affect the world. With enough people aware, we can help the people of South Sudan from falling victim to yet another fatal disease.
Read more at:
Sudan Declares Christmas a Public Holiday for First Time in a Decade
This past Wednesday, millions of people around the world celebrated Christmas. However, this was the first time in 10 years that the country of Sudan recognized Christmas as a public holiday, which is seen as a major step toward realizing religious equality and freedom in the region.
For the past three decades, the Islamist regime of Omar al-Bashir ruled over Sudan, instilling a secular and unaccommodating religious environment. With the recent military coup and formation of a transitional government, Bashir’s hold over the country has ended and Sudan’s current civilian prime minster has made it their mission to instill a new regime of welcoming and respecting of other religions.
While Christians make up a minority of the citizens living in Sudan, mostly in Khartoum and the Nuba Mountains, the nation has officially recognized Christmas as a public holiday, allowing these oppressed followers to celebrate their religion openly and without discrimination.
Many pro-democracy activists see this as a massive step in the right direction, and hope that this will pave the way for more improvements in the coming months as Sudan continues to rebuild itself in the wake of a violent civil war.
Bishop Kussala Recalls Traumatizing Adolescence in War-Torn Sudan
South Sudan has been engaged in turmoil for years, and people such as Bishop Eduardo Hiiboro Kussala knows first-hand of how horrid life is in the war-torn region.
When he was two months old, Bishop Kussala’s mother was violently killed, forcing him to be raised by his grandmother.
According to Bishop Kussala, his grandmother told him the names of those who killed his mother, and this led to him growing up with much hatred in his heart for them. However, while he was in a seminary, he met Father Ed Brady, a Jesuit priest from the US, who managed to convert him to a nonviolent mindset and showed him how to achieve peace through reconciliation.
Life had not been easy for Bishop Kussala, but his turn to religion helped him cope with the trauma of his past. Nowadays, he is an outspoken South Sudan advocate who fights relentlessly to provide food, shelter, medicine, and hope to the people living in the region.
His hope is that he can raise enough awareness around the world for people to fully grasp the seriousness behind the situation so that they can help the cause.
South Sudan Defies Peace Deal; Recruits 10,000 Soldiers
Despite efforts over the past year to establish peace in South Sudan, it seems that local governments may be heading in another direction. Recent reports indicate that President Salva Kiir and the South Sudan National Security Service have recruited approximately 10,000 new fighters, breaching the terms of the peace deal.
Back in 2018, a fragile peace deal was signed to end the civil war in the region after more than 400,000 people had been killed. Unfortunately, it appears that South Sudan is not abiding by the deal due to these new updates about its military forces.
Because of this delay, the United States has announced that it will be recalling its South Sudan ambassador back to Washington to consult and reevaluate the relationship between the two countries.
Government officials are hoping for more positive updates in the coming months, but they are keeping a close watch on military movement in the meantime.
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