Food & Water for Refugees in South Sudan

For most of the world, the war in Sudan is just another distant conflict. But for us, an NGO working in the northern part of South Sudan, it throws an already fragile humanitarian situation into crisis mode. People who fled from here to escape the floods and tribal conflict are coming home to villages poorly equipped to help.

Fighting broke out in Sudan in April, with two rival military factions competing for power.  Over three million people are displaced. In the case of Southern Sudanese citizens, the escape from war is bringing thousands of refugees back to villages that are already taxed to the limit. Current estimates are that 250,000 people have fled across Sudan's borders.

Near our compound in Old Fangak, boats arrive daily with exhausted returnees carrying all their possessions in suitcases. They will need to find food, water, and shelter. The stories of their flight are heartbreaking.  Onboard a recent transport boat, carrying refugees from on the Nile River from Renk, South Sudan to Malakal, 26 people died from starvation—19 children and 7 adults. 

In our village of Old Fangak, we meet weekly with all the NGO groups to assess the situation and coordinate our response. The current total of returnees in Old Fangak is 3,590.  Two hours down river at the village of New Fangak there are another 10,000 refugees. Nearby Paguir has 5,000.   As we review the reports from all the villages in our service area the number is over 31,000 returnees and growing.  Seventy-five percent are women and children.

The clean drinking water that donors support with this project is essential to the emergency response.  Our well drilling teams are moving through the region to assess the needs.  We are repairing the nonfunctioning wells we come across.  In June we drilled a well in the New Fangak area that is providing clean drinking water to many refugees.  In addition, our agriculture team is distributing seeds that returnees can use to start small gardens.

Thank you for your part in helping.  We had not anticipated this level of need.  We are grateful that through thoughtful giving we can respond in ways that are saving lives.  With your support we can and will do even more.  We would like to drill more wells, and improve others, so that returnees have the clean drinking water they urgently need.  Gifts to this project connect a “distant conflict” to donors directly.  The people being served have a better chance to survive a crisis they had no part in creating but has now sent them into our hands for the help they now need.  Thank you again.

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• Learn more about our work.

There are places in South Sudan that are difficult to get to and then there's Nyadin.  This collection of communities in the swamp of the Sudd became isolated due to high flood water and an impenetrable web of reeds, grasses, water lilies and swamp vegetation. You can't walk here.  Only a small canoe provides access in this area of Fangak County, South Sudan.

As the waters have risen, most of the people here (several thousand) have left their homesteads and become South Sudan's newest refugees—moving to the few places with higher ground.  Islands, most smaller than a football field, became "home". Our team moves silently through areas which once had the laughter of children, braying livestock, the morning crow of roosters. Mothers calling their children to dinner. Today only the sound of paddles slipping through the dark water next to our canoe. It is eerie and sad.  There was nothing the former residents could do.  Now they are refugees in their own land, and they need help.

The high chief of Nyadin told us the first and highest need is clearing a path through the swamp.  The only way aid can be brought to this desperate area is by having a path.  "Could you, would you provide sickles, hoes, pangas (machetes), and other tools to clear a path for small boats?" he asked.  "Three hundred men will come and clear a path, but we need tools and food and fishing nets. Can Alaska do this?"  The answer was yes.

We chartered a Cessna Caravan and loaded it with a ton of supplies to clear a path.  It landed a week later at the airstrip at a village called Paguir. From there the tools were carried by small boat to where the men of Nyadin could begin their work.  One hundred fishing nets would help them catch food while they cut a path. The men of Nyadin came in small dugout canoes.  A flotilla of men and boys eager to do the work of clearing the way to Nyadin.  Just moments ago, where there was silence. Now a hundred voices singing—and laughter. The sounds of hope.

Clearing the way took nearly two weeks.  As soon as we heard that the path was open, we mobilized to bring the drilling equipment and supplies to bring clean water for the refugees of the islands of Nyadin.  This is not an easy task.  No other NGO in South Sudan is equipped and experienced to do the work in these conditions.  It's not new to us.  Over the last four years we've worked in the flooded areas of South Sudan in three dozen communities bringing seeds, seedlings and tools for growing fruits and vegetables and drilling new boreholes for clean water.  This is the work you support.

We are happy to report that after the path was cleared and our work began, four communities now have water wells for clean drinking water.  Ten thousand internally displaced refugees in the swamp of the Sudd have clean water.  We are grateful for your support.  It takes all of us to bring hope—to bring clean water. To show that people care about children and mothers and grandparents they will never meet. Giving to this project  has created an island of hope in the swamps of South Sudan.  We have grateful tears that together we have brought clean water for the refugees of Nyadin.  

Links:

• More about our work in South Sudan.