“The Situation is Nothing Short of Catastrophic”

Refugee Kits Stop Starvation

“The bullets were entering our house”

Fatima Mohammed told how her family was forced from their home in an instant. But the journey out of the city under attack was rife with danger, said the 33-year-old teacher who escaped with her husband and five children from El-Obeid in central Sudan.

“The bullets were entering our house. We were trapped between crossfire…We needed to leave for the good of our kids.”

It took them five days to escape. On the way to find safety in a refugee camp, they were robbed of their phones and all their money.

“The living conditions here are very difficult,” says Nyakuoth Gadluak, a resident of a transit camp in the South Sudan city of Renk.

She lost her husband in the war and gave birth in the camp to a baby boy, who now faces severe malnutrition from the lack of food there. She worries if her baby will survive.

Fatimah had to get her children out when bullets riddled their house. It took five days to escape. Now, their camp is low on food. She worries how she will feed her children.

It is a clarion call to anyone who will hear, in a crisis the UN has identified as “the worst humanitarian catastrophe in the world today.” Fueled by a lethal combination of massive displacement and a widespread food shortage, the crisis is largely being ignored.

To date, over 650,000 people have left everything behind to make the perilous trip to the border of South Sudan seeking safety, and this number increases each day. But displaced families only leave war to find hunger and potential starvation in many camps.

The World Food Program says at crowded transit camps in South Sudan, “families arrive hungry and are met with more hunger.” As the clock ticks and reports of starvation begin to climb, Sudan Relief Fund is on the ground providing emergency aid. As we have in times like this before, our networks are distributing critical aid to help desperate families survive, including refugee kits.

Delivering What People Need Most

Families who arrive at a camp have often gone days without eating. When they’re handed relief supplies, it may be the first humane event they experienced since losing everything.

Refugee kits save lives. Families who’ve endured the horrors of war can receive a gift containing items they need to survive.

What can you do to help? Send refugee kits. Your gift will provide the essentials a destitute family needs to survive in the midst of a tragedy reaching monumental proportions.

HOW YOUR GIFTS HELP

• $66 sustains three families with refugee kits
• $132 sustains six families with refugee kits
• $198 sustains nine families with refugee kits

Refugee kits contain survival essentials for families who have nothing. Forced to flee suddenly, they can bring very little. They may lose what few belongings they had while trying to escape. On the treacherous path to get out, many families like Fatima’s are robbed and left with nothing.

With resources like refugee kits, exhausted families find what they need most – clean water, food items like maize, beans, cooking oil, salt, sugar and seeds. They also receive essentials for setting up shelter like tents, blankets, cooking pots, mosquito nets, and hygiene items.

Traumatized families can experience relief for the first moment since their harrowing tragedy began, knowing at least they have the basics for now to survive.

“Appalled by the Global Inaction”

Fallout from the millions of lives devastated by Sudan’s war is completely overwhelming humanitarian aid efforts in neighboring nations.

Of the more than 10 million people who’ve fled for their lives to escape Sudan’s violent war, at least half are children.

In some refugee camps, children are starving at an intolerable rate of two an hour, with 13 child deaths every day. Help is urgently needed to stop this.

In the Zamzam refugee camp in northern Darfur state of Sudan, at least one child dies every two hours. The medical charity working there says previous aid has come to an abrupt halt.

“What we are seeing….is an absolutely catastrophic situation,” said a charity representative, who estimates about 13 children are dying each day.

She warned that children with severe malnutrition who have not yet died “are at high risk of dying within three to six weeks if they do not get treatment.”“We are appalled by the global inaction,” said Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council. “Host communities have no capacity to cope with the massive displacement.

“The outside world must better support South Sudan as it shoulders the cost of more than half a million people fleeing conflict. We cannot look away while…neighboring countries shoulder a burden they cannot bear.”

Over half the refugees of war are children – the most vulnerable to starvation. These girls eat today because of an emergency food donation.

Send Refugee Kits to Stop Starvation

We’ve been on the ground since day one working to support refugees in camps like Malakal in the northern region of South Sudan.

But there are so many more in abject, desperate need. And they keep coming.

Refugee kits are a tangible way to help people in need. You have the assurance of knowing the gift you supply is vital to the lives of families devastated by war.

We are immeasurably grateful for the faithfulness of our donor community, who has stepped up time and again during the past year to help people suffering in heartbreaking circumstances.

Because of you, we’re able to keep rescuing people from the warzone and bring them by boat to safety inside the border of South Sudan.  Because of your partnership, we’ve been providing emergency food rations, clean water, and shelter to refugees in Malakal, and lifesaving medicine to the displaced in Nuba. These gifts are saving lives. Our teams are on the ground monitoring the situation and assessing needs in the camps we serve.

A staggering 10 million refugees have fled the war in the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. But a catastrophic food shortage means thousands could starve.

Desperate people need food and shelter immediately. You can know your gift makes the most powerful impact in their lives.
 
We’ve been working in Sudan and South Sudan for more than two decades. As a result, we have the network and distribution capabilities to get help quickly to people who need it. But we need your help to make this lifesaving intervention continue for families like Fatima’s, in a region suffering from severe food insecurity. And the massive number of people still trying to get to safety.

Starvation must not be tolerated. Please rush your gift to send refugee kits to the hungry. This one act you do today will save someone’s life.

They keep coming. Camps already lack enough food for the sheer numbers of displaced. 1,500 more arrive each day in Malakal. Refugee kits contain essentials that can save families.

Sincerely,

Neil A. Corkery President