When Childhoods Are Torn Away

Orphan Crisis Surges in Sudan and South Sudan

Rebecca was only six when armed men came to her village. She saw things no one, especially a child, should ever see. When it was over, her family was gone, and she was alone.

Too terrified to move, she stayed in the burned out village until her hunger became overwhelming. She wandered for days searching for food.

There are so many orphans and unaccompanied children in South Sudan, they are often disregarded and overlooked. Many just pass by these lost children unnoticed.

At night Rebecca slept outside, unprotected from dangers that lurk in the night, including wild predators and nefarious people.

Eventually her tiny body gave out. When all she could do was lie on the ground for lack of strength, a miracle happened. An older woman found her and brought her to St. Bakhita Orphanage in nearby Nzara. That intervention saved Rebecca’s life.

With the help of our donors, we support orphanages to rescue children like Rebecca. These safe havens are critical to saving the lives of orphans who have nowhere to go.

The Orphan Crisis

Right now 5 million children in South Sudan need humanitarian assistance to survive. For children who are orphans or separated from their parents, the situation is even more dire. They’re beyond impoverished – they have nothing. No one to help them get food, clean water, and shelter. No medical care if they’re sick or injured. No one to protect them.

Another factor contributes to the rise of the orphan population. Many women and girls lack access to health care or a safe place to give birth. The death rate in childbirth is one of the highest in the world. We’re making great strides to establish safe places that offer maternity care, but many are still without. From birth these babies are born into the world as orphans.

Over 2 million children are expected to suffer acute malnutrition this year in South Sudan. With parents struggling to feed their own families, who will look out for orphans? Without help, orphaned children are at tremendous risk of starvation. A malnourished child is up to 12 times more likely to die from common illnesses. 

Without help, orphans in South Sudan face starvation.

Fighting for Their Life

Imagine being a child alone in a region filled with conflict and violence. Orphans are vulnerable to being kidnapped, trafficked, exploited. Unaccompanied children may be forced by militias to serve as child soldiers. Girls may be forcibly taken as servants and “wives.” They’re prime targets for hazardous child labor in places like cattle camps and mines.

In short, an unaccompanied child in South Sudan has no safety net. Every basic need — food, water, shelter, protection from violence—becomes a daily fight for life. This is why support for orphanages and child protection is urgently needed.

Remembering the Orphan

For years we’ve supported safe places to give orphans a home. To get them off the streets, out of the wilderness, out of conflict and disaster zones, to a place where they can remember how to be a child.

Children’s homes like St. Bakhita Orphanage in Nzara and Pan Ngath Orphanage in Rumbek, provide critical safe havens. These Sudan Relief Fund supported homes offer loving faith based care—literally rescuing children from peril and giving them hope for a new future. At these orphanages, children have a whole new chance at life.

1 in 10 children die before 5 without lifesaving care and support.

Getting Their Childhood Back – St. Bakhita Orphanage

Over 200 children currently call St. Bakhita Orphanage their home. It’s housed in a brand new larger facility made possible by the generosity of our supporters. It was the culmination of Sister Bianca Bii’s vision, an extraordinary woman who was the founder and heartbeat of St. Bakhita Orphanage, steadfastly standing between children and danger for decades.

What began for Sister Bianca as a search for abandoned children needing care after the war for independence, became a fulltime calling to save orphans. Through the years, her mission grew from a few dozen children to more than 200 today. 

Your generosity provides food, clean water, beds, schooling, and medical care for orphans at St. Bakhita who have lost their families to violence, sickness, and hardship. The orphanage is completely dependent on generous sponsors like you. The beautiful new facility was recently completed with dormitories, a new kitchen, gathering hall, and security gates–all provided by compassionate donors.

The Blue Sister nuns, under the direction of Sister Rose, recently joined to help the aging Sister Bianca at St. Bakhita Orphanage. It is here where someone brought Rebecca after finding her emaciated and lying by the roadside—underscoring St. Bakhita’s absolutely critical role in caring for these helpless children.

Disabled children are sadly often abandoned, but find care at St. Bakhita Orphanage.

A Future Through Education

The chance to get an education makes all the difference in a child’s future. At St. Bakhita Orphanage, children have the opportunity to attend Our Lady of Assumption School in nearby Riimenze. The school also contains boarding facilities to host children from remote areas where there are no schools. This year, your support for the school gave ten students from St. Bakhita Orphanage the opportunity to live at the boarding school fulltime.

Saving Abandoned Infants at Pan Ngath Orphanage

We also partner with the Missionary Sisters of Charity to support the Pan Ngath Orphanage in Rumbek. It is a haven especially for tiny babies. Most of those here lost their mothers in childbirth. So many mothers in South Sudan remain without health care and die in labor, resulting in one of the highest mortality rates in the world. Pan Ngath is the only facility in the entire region that will take infants.

The Sisters work around the clock to provide care for often severely malnourished babies, nursing them back to life and committing to giving them a future with hope. We provide support to Pan Ngath Orphanage, including everything from food and utensils to all the medicines, formula, baby blankets, sterile cleaning solutions, and supplies needed to give medical care to babies who often arrive in critical condition.

We recently built a new multipurpose hall, kitchen, and store room for the home. The multipurpose hall is now being used as a living area for the children, while renovations take place to the existing living area and a damaged roof is repaired. The renovation project will be completed soon and enable the home to accommodate more children in need. 

The Sisters also care for a group of displaced elderly and some mentally handicapped young girls–a labor of love in a region where there are no programs to take care of people in these circumstances. Without Pan Ngath, they would be homeless.

Orphans are in danger of exploitation. His future depends on the compassion of others.

Will You Answer Their Cries?

Given her new chance at life, six year-old Rebecca is safe and well now. But what if she hadn’t been found by a kind woman who brought her to St. Bakhita Orphanage? Many other vulnerable children struggle to survive on their own—children way too young have this burden upon them.

It’s support from people like you that enable programs to care for the heartbreaking number of orphans in South Sudan.

No child should sleep on the ground hungry and alone, wondering if they’ll ever feel safe again. Yet for orphans in South Sudan, this is a daily reality—unless someone like you steps in.

In this part of the world, there are no government programs to take care of orphans. They are on their own. They have no help. Your gift means the difference between daily meals or facing starvation; between shelter or sleeping on the streets; between medical care when they’re sick or suffering alone; the difference between safety and protection or perilous strangers who would do them harm. Your gift to provide a home makes all the difference in their life.

South Sudan is a desolate place to be an orphan without someone like you to help support safe homes. If you are moved to do so, ongoing giving of a monthly gift ensures orphanages like Pan Ngath and St. Bakhita have regular monthly support to provide for the needs of many children.

At orphanages like Pan Ngath, kids can feel safe and secure again.

Will you stand with the defenseless and protect the vulnerable? Will you help provide the basic needs every child should have, and give them dignity and hope?

Your gifts support safe places that give shattered young lives a home, healing, and a hopeful tomorrow. Homes that let them be children again.

Will you say yes to the cry of an orphan like Rebecca? Please reach out today and change an orphaned child’s story from despair to hope.

Sincerely,

Neil A. Corkery President