In Sudan, health care is a political act for hero doctors

It took Ahmed Zacharia, the only native-born doctor of the four who serve 1.5 million people in the Nuba Mountains, a full 11 years to complete his six years of medical study. Too little time in the library wasn’t the problem, but too much time in jail, where he was tortured for opposing the Islamist government.

He and his American colleague, Tom Catena, the only trained American surgeon in the Nuba Mountains, provide so much more than medical care in a place where women still often die during childbirth and children of dehydration from untreated diarrhea. Their decision to stay on and work in hospitals that have repeatedly been bombed by government forces inspires the kind of gratitude that you can really only call love.

But recently, both of their personal lives have taken turns that gave the Nuba people a reason to celebrate: Zacharia, who is 40, married not long ago, and in the ultimate expression of hope in an uncertain future, he and his wife are expecting their first child.

Catena is also a newlywed whose wife, Nasima Mohammed Bashir, is a Nuba born nurse. Dr. Tom is Nubian now!’’ a local friend says. Nasima’s own marriage, of course, is not at all typical: “I’m the first person to marry a white man,’’ she says, which people being people, “some criticize and some appreciate.”

In a world of shifting alliances, Zacharia loves that medicine is so morally unambiguous: “Even those injured on the front lines” while fighting against his people “come to us, and there are medical laws and you treat them; it’s straightforward.”

Catena says he is motivated by his Catholic faith and seems to have settled in the area. He says the only one way he’d leave this life is if things got so much better that his patients there didn’t need him anymore. That will not be happening any time soon.

http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/melinda-henneberger/article137317423.html

South Sudan melts down as we avert our eyes…

There are more than 700,000 refugees from South Sudan just across the border in northern Uganda. The country is on the brink of a genocide, according to a new warning – its direst yet—from the United Nations.

How many more people have to die before we decide to intervene?

The UN report issued this week, after a seven month inquiry by the United nations High Commissioner for Refugees, cites ethnic cleansing, mass rape and deliberate starvation in a country where a famine was declared last month, and displaced farmers can’t plant their crops.

As in Rwanda, South Sudanese are fleeing to churches where they hope they’ll be protected. And just as in Rwanda, they are not safe there either. In an interview in Kampala, Bishop Eduardo Kussala, of formerly peaceful Yambio, says 7 of his 33 parishes have become refugees for thousands – and in some places, tens of thousands.

South Sudan’s so-called leaders now copy the tactics of their former Sudanese oppressors. Salva Kiir, the country’s president, whose troops now rape and kill, still proudly wears the cowboy hat that was a gift from George W. Bush, who worked intensely on the Sudan peace process.

If there’s to be any hope of saving the South Sudanese people from those who are running what’s left of their country, the new U.S. president, Donald Trump, will have to be more engaged than Barack Obama, who said all the right words about genocide but waited until it was too late to even push for an arms embargo.

Many of the rest of us also have said more than once that we’d never stand by and let this happen again, yet here we are. “The world if busy with itself,” says Bishop Kussala. But that is no excuse.

Read full article by Melinda Henneberger here.

Uganda’s sprawling haven for 270,000 of South Sudan’s refugees

When South Sudan descended into renewed violence last July, Bidi Bidi refugee camp was expected to hold 40,000 people. Soon after it opened, it started growing by twice that number every month. Now it’s a sprawling expanse of mud-walled huts and tents, inhabited by 270,000 of South Sudan’s refugees who have fled violence, hunger, and rapid inflation in their home country.

The Bidi Bidi settlement is believed to be the largest single refugee settlement in the world and it was built just six months ago. Its rapid growth is a reflection of the ongoing crisis in South Sudan, which the UN has warned could be on the verge of genocide.

Every day, thousands of people cross the border into Uganda. This year, the UN expects another 300,000 South Sudanese refugees to arrive, adding to the more than 600,000 already here. Of the current refugees, 86% are women and children.

“These innocent women and children who are fleeing now, they need a home,” says Robert Baryamwesiga, the Bidi Bidi settlement commandant. “They need a life, a normal life, because they are innocent. They are not politicians. They are just victims.”

Uganda has a unique refugee policy, allowing refugees in the country to work, travel and mix with the surrounding community. Scattered throughout the settlement are markets where refugees sell vegetables, packaged food and clothing. Entrepreneurs have set up small shops to fix motorcycles and build furniture. Schools, playgrounds and medical centers set up by aid groups cater to thousands of people.

In December, Bidi Bidi closed its doors to new refugees except for those reuniting with families already here. New migrants are being sent to a new settlement just an hour away, and work is already under way for a further camp.

Read more here.

Fresh Clashes near South Sudan’s Oil Hub of Malakal

Fresh clashes broke out around South Sudan’s second-largest city of Malakal, the latest turn in the struggle for the capital of the oil-producing Upper Nile region.

The United Nations said Malakal was largely deserted after civilians fled the fighting.

“The rebels had been trying to provoke the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) all this time because the SPLA has been given instruction not to wage offensives against the rebel forces,” said military spokesman Colonel Santo Domic Chol. “This is in line with the call by the president for the national dialogue,” he added, referring to a presidential directive on dealing with the rebels.

However, rebel spokesman William Gatjiath Deng said government troops launched several attacks on rebel positions.

“In the fight this morning, [the] Juba regime suffered heavy losses in human and material, as bodies of the Juba regime soldiers lie everywhere,” he said in a press statement.

Neither Chol nor Deng had casualty figures.

Read more here.

Trump Must Reverse Obama’s Lifting of Sudan Sanctions

With minimal explanation, outgoing President Obama eased sanctions on Sudan. It’s not clear why Obama did this, but it’s clear to many of those in the region that this move, unless reversed by President Trump, will harm poor people who face terror and have nothing.

The facts on the ground in Sudan and South Sudan do nothing to justify Obama’s decision to lift the U.S. trade embargo against Sudan and unblock the Sudanese regime’s assets. The Obama administration argues that the government of Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir has made some “progress” on the counterterrorism front — yet not enough that Sudan will lose its designation as a state sponsor of terrorism. Even the “progress” on terrorism is open to question. What’s not open to question is that Obama’s move to relieve sanctions, if not reversed by the new administration, forfeits U.S. leverage to end the repression and slaughter in this country, including the Darfur region. We’ve seen over the last eight years that throwing away U.S. power and influence — “leading from behind” — does not work.

Trump and Rex Tillerson should take what steps they can to immediately reverse the out-going administration’s shameful eleventh-hour decision. If not, they will make Obama and Kerry’s shame their own. Democrats in Congress should start asking as many questions about Iran, Cuba, and Sudan (real state sponsors of terrorism) as they have about Russia in recent weeks.

Read more here.

Escaping the slaughter: The young refugees who ran from South Sudan’s ethnic violence

South Sudan is the world’s youngest country – and its young are suffering the most. More than a million people have fled abroad from ethnic violence that has killed an estimated 50,000.

The UN Refugee Agency, alongside Ugandan authorities, runs what has become the world’s second largest refugee camp. Bidi Bidi is home to 270,000 people – and it seems each of them is a witness to extreme brutality.

“It’s war and our parents die,” says Lena, a 16 year old refugee traumatized by the deaths of her mother and father. “There are many orphans here.”

The United Nations is sufficiently concerned at the escalation of violence to warn of the potential for genocide. However, the UN Security Council failed to agree an arms embargo on the country.

The UK government has provided more than £100m in aid to South Sudan this year and British troops are due to bolster the United Nations peacekeeping mission in South Sudan in the months ahead. But by then, there might be little peace to keep.

Read more here.

Bookseller of Malakal brings words of comfort to war-torn South Sudan

Just over three years ago Juma’a Ali traveled to South Sudan to escape persecution with all the books he could carry. Unfortunately, around the time of his arrival, civil war broke out in the world’s youngest country. Now he is one of the tens of thousands displaced people, but he still has hope. Ali’s little book shop now stands as a source of education and distraction from the often deplorable conditions the camp’s residents live with on a daily basis.

Read more here.