Update from Dane Smith
Jonglei Situation Precarious
Recent violence and flooding have generated enormous population disruption in South Sudan’s Jonglei state. Some 350,000 are reportedly displaced, including 180,000 around Bor alone. Distribution of food and other relief supplies has been limited, although those in and around Bor have been reached, according to the Jonglei Relief and Rehabilitation Commission.
Vulnerability of Humanitarian Workers
Since the beginning of 2020 nine humanitarian workers have been killed in the line of duty in South Sudan. In late October two were murdered in Jonglei State and the Pibor Administrative Area, causing Plan International temporarily to halt its program.
South Sudan and Medical NGO’s
The health ministry of South Sudan has placed new limitations on international NGOs operating in the country’s healthcare sector. According to BBC News, those limitations include the requirement that all such organizations deposit their funds in a single account held by the central bank. The NGOs are also prohibited from hiring local medical professionals, with the justification that such hiring leads to an “internal brain-drain”. The government’s rationale for these limitations is unlikely to be persuasive to foreign friends.
A new ambulance, purchased in Juba by Bishop Joseph Garang Atemfor the Diocese of Renk with funds from Virginia parishes.
Photo source: Jackie Kraus
Resumption of South Sudanese National Dialogue
The final conference of the South Sudan National Dialogue began November 3, supported by IGAD, the African Union and South Sudan’s neighbor governments. However, the SPLM/IO declined to participate, along with Lam Akol’s National Democratic Movement. Civil society and representatives of the South Sudan Council of Churches are participating.
Call for creation of government structures
Charles Tai Gitual, the interim chair of South Sudan’s Reconstituted Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (R-JMEC), is calling for a more rapid structuring of the Transitional National Legislative Assembly, and the South Sudanese state governments. The R-JMEC is an oversight body created under the 2018 peace agreement – the Revised Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (R/ARCSS). Gitual also noted that women should make up 35% of representation at state levels.
(Source: Sudan Post)
Civil Conflict in Ethiopia Impacts Sudan
The Ethiopian Government’s offensive against theTigray regional government, coupled with reported shelling of Tigray by the Eritrean Government, has displaced thousands. As of November 14 some 25,000 refugees had spilled over the Sudanese border toward Gedaref.
COVID in Sudan
As of the end of October Sudan had reported 13,804 cases of COVID-19, including 837 deaths. There is little evidence that COVID is a significant issue in Sudan after a spike in cases in May and June.
Executive Director
Episcopal University of South Sudan:
A Conversation between Rick Houghton and Eeva John
Dr. Eeva John, picking up the phone at her home in the United Kingdom, had some good news to share with the Reverend Frederic L. Houghton, a former teacher of theology in Namibia and Kenya now living in Washington, DC, anad member of the AFRECS Board…
“The Episcopal University of South Sudan,” she announced, has received a large anonymous gift, arriving on the day of the Annual General Meeting of Sudan University Partners in the United Kingdom. This donation will enable construction to begin on the new campus at Rokon within the next six months. EMI, an alliance of Christian architects and builders, will supervise the construction through its Uganda branch, partnering with EUSS. EMI was founded was founded in the United States in 1982 , now with branches around the world.
“I am thrilled to learn from you of this wonderful gift from God” Houghton said. “And it isn’t even Christmas yet! We may well thank God for this good news and show our gratitude by renewed efforts.”
Many readers will know Dr. Eeva John, an associate of Ridley Hall at Cambridge University, as a staunch advocate of the church in Sudan and of the Episcopal University in particular. She graced AFRECS with her presence at our Chicago conference. Her resumé reveals a PhD in chemistry, a diploma and Master’s degree in theology, and teaching experience in three British seminaries. Working for the Archbishop of Canterbury, she coordinated a taskforce which produced a common curriculum for all British seminaries.
Dr. John tempered her good news with details. “The existing seminaries of The Episcopal Church of South Sudan are teaching again after a Covid shutdown, but they are struggling financially, due to the inflation produced by civil unrest and lack of government leadership. The formal licensing of the Episcopal University seems to be stalled, with Archbishop Justin Badi now involved in some tactful inquiries to speed things up. The search for a chancellor is on hold until the Covid situation abates, but a Zoom network is being set up so that local and overseas leaders can engage in joint planning. Our prayers, financial aid, and advocacy are still needed.”
Schooling Interrupted by Virus, then Floods
Photo source: Nichola Mandil, BBC NewsThe State of Jonglei in South Sudan, along with the rest of the world, has suffered the ravages caused by the current pandemic. Now catastrophic flooding has occurred in Jonglei and Unity State. Many thousands have lost their homes, crops and cattle, and hunger has increased. The schools in Bor, the capital of Jonglei, were closed for several months. They reopened in September, but students have encountered major difficulty in getting to school because of recent flooding. The entire state of Jonglei expected about 4,000 candidates to take final examinations early next year. However, many students in Bor and other locations have had to drop out. Flooding has made it impossible for them to continue their schooling. A local secondary education official, Francis Mayen, has said that flooding will not force the school system in Bor to close, but might require some schools to relocate.
There are not nearly enough schools or trained teachers to educate all the children and young adults in South Sudan. However, the Episcopal Church is active in the field of education, with five theological colleges, four Bible schools, and a vocational training center. In addition, some 8,000 students attend the church’s twelve secondary schools and 280 primary and pre-primary schools. The latest ambitious project is the creation of The Episcopal University of South Sudan with its hub in Rokon, near Juba.**
From news.un.org, ecssup.org
The Good Lie
First screened at the 2014 Toronto Film Festival, later promoted on U.S. college campuses by The Enough Project, the film The Good Lie remains, almost a decade later, an entertaining and instructive introduction for North Americans to the South Sudanese among us. Values of Dinka society and American society clash, and the audience chuckles.
Along with Reese Witherspoon (Legally Blonde, Sweet Home Alabama, Walk the LIne) — a real-life friend of the Sudans and an Episcopalian — the cast includes the African actors Arnold Oceng, Kuoth Wiel, Femi Oguns, Ger Duany, and Emmanuel Jal. (The three principal Sudanese actors, all former refugees, encourage donations to UNICEF.) John Prendergast, an American activist, appears in a scene at the U. N. refugee camp handing the refugees a block of ice as a pre-departure lesson.
With flashbacks to the burning of villages in 1983 and the 1,000 mile trek of the young survivors from Bahr al Ghazal region to a U.N. refugee camp in the Kenyan desert, the story picks up in 2000 when 3,600 out of Kakuma’s 10,000 residents are selected to resettle in the U.S. We follow Amere, Abital, Jeremiah, and Paul as they deplane in Kansas City and start to look for work, but Abital is separated from her brother for lack of a sponsor family and is sent to Boston. The action culminates on New Year’s Day 2002, when the Midwestern “Lost Boys” regather to celebrate their collective, immigration service-assigned official birthday.
Parishioners of Grace Episcopal Church in Lexington, Virginia enjoyed viewing The Good Lie in 2019 at Washington and Lee University, through the offices of Douglas Cummings, professor of journalism, prior to welcoming South Sudanese guests into their homes for the AFRECS annual conference.
Asylum Petition Awaits Hearing
David Mayen Dengdit, a political dissident who resigned in 2018 as an aide to Vice President James Wani Igga of South Sudan, is pursuing an LLM degree in Environmental and Natural Resources Law and Policy at Sturm College of Law, University of Denver, while awaiting a U.S. immigration court hearing on his petition for asylum. Mayen writes, “I find it consoling to see oneself and one’s limited-choice challenges as a small, if not immaterial, grain in a somewhat imperfect world. I appreciate my current blessings, in comparison to other millions who have lost hope in a better tomorrow.”
ICYMI: Presence, Peacebuilding, and Pastoral Mission in South Sudan Webinar recording available online
A recording of the CEEP-sponsored webinar about the work of AFRECS, “Presence, Peacebuilding, and Pastoral Mission in South Sudan” is available on the CEEP website. Our Executive Director, Dane Smith, moderated a panel discussion with AFRECS President Phil Darrow; Rev. Joseph Billal, Vice Chancellor of the Episcopal University of South Sudan; and Jackie Kraus, member of the Task Force on Dialogue with the South Sudanese Anglican Diaspora.
How to Find Back Issues of AFRECS E-Blast
An archive of all E-blasts can be found by clicking “E-Blasts” on the bottom of any E-blast article. You will see 5 recent E-blast links appear on the right-hand sidebar on each E-blast if you are reading it on your desktop computer. Also, there are arrow buttons on the bottom of the post: these will move you either forward or backward to the E-Blast immediately preceding or the immediately following the one you are looking at.
Issue edited by AFRECS Board Members Frederick Houghton and Gwinneth Clarkson