Tearfund responds as Sudan crisis deepens

 

Christian relief and development agency Tearfund is scaling up its response to the crisis in Sudan as 1.2 million people displaced by conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan face a deepening threat of hunger and disease.

 

Tearfund relief workers are launching supplementary feeding, nutrition and sanitation programmes in some of the worst affected areas inside Darfur, while Tearfund church partners are working in camps in Chad where 200,000 people have sought refuge.

 

 

"We are in a race against time to get help to affected people in Darfur, many of whom have no shelter and little or no food and water," says Marcus Oxley, Tearfund's Director of Disaster Management. "The rainy season is starting and there is a very real danger of fresh outbreaks of disease and hunger. The rains are already making it difficult to get aid through to those who are suffering."

Tens of thousands of people have died in the past 15 months, many of them murdered by Janjaweed militias who have attacked, looted and terrorised villagers in Darfur. Two rebel groups in Darfur with political, economic and social grievances against the Sudan government launched an armed rebellion last year, after which attacks against civilians by Janjaweed militia escalated. Human Rights Watch and other international bodies have accused the Sudanese Government of arming the Janjaweed. The government deny involvement.

Last week Sudanese refugees who have fled to camps in Chad told Tearfund workers their experiences of being caught in a crisis the UN is describing as the 'worst humanitarian crisis in the world.'

"Early in the morning I was in my house when I heard shouting. I went outside and saw that men had arrived and were starting to kill my friends and neighbours," says Mariam Khamis Abdelkerim (30), who arrived at Bredjing camp last week with her five-year-old son Nadifa Ibrahim Hissein. Some 27,000 people have flooded into Bredjing camp during the past month when only 12,000 were expected.

 

Sitting under the scorching hot sun next to a patchwork shelter made of cloth and matting strung over sticks, Mariam continues: "I grabbed my baby and ran. We hid for two days in the bush with other people before creeping back. We found 10 dead bodies of men from our village.

In common with most refugees in this conflict Mariam and her family have virtually no possessions. "Everything in our village was destroyed or stolen - our homes, our food, our cattle. The clothes we are wearing have been given to us by people here in Chad. What I would like to say to the world is that we need food. We need clothes and animals to survive."

One of Mariam's camp neighbours, Fatouma Abdel Rerim is one thousands of women widowed by the conflict. "When men attacked our village, my husband and I hid ourselves in a hole in the ground.  But the soldiers found us. They shot him and left. Now without a husband I must beg for food."

 

Tearfund partners, Entente des Eglises et Missions Evangeliques au Tchad (EEMET), which represents thousands of churches in Chad, is responding to the crisis. It has erected tents, dug wells and constructed latrines in Bredjing camp.

Pastor Ngarndeye Bako, General Secretary of EEMET, says: "We are in a David and Goliath situation. We do not have many resources but we have a heart to do God's will and show that what God has provided for us, we can share with those in need.

"At the start of this crisis we mobilised 8000 churches to pray, and we are following that up with action from the churches to provide for the refugees."

To find out more about what tearfund are doing and how you can help, click here

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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