South Sudan Struggles with COVID School Closings
From The Rev. Frederick L. Houghton, AFRECS Board Member
The School in Protection of Civilians Camp #3 in better times – preparing for COVID-19.
From AFRECS photo archives
While the US debates rage on whether to reopen schools, an even more painful choice faces our sisters and brothers in South Sudan. Emerging from decades of civil war and ethnic unrest, South Sudan has one of the lowest literacy rates in the world– 27%. (Niger is the lowest, at 19%.) Primitive as many of them are, South Sudanese schools were making a heroic effort to improve this situation. One of the most promising has been the school for refugee children in Juba which AFRECS supports. All of this came to a halt with COVID-19.
Now NGOs such as Save the Children, UNICEF, and UNESCO are calling for gradual reopening of schools, pointing out that other sectors are already reopening. The SS Ministry of Health has chosen a more cautious approach: “According to Undersecretary Kuyok Akol Kuyok, it is not safe to reopen schools, especially after the Ministry of Health and WHO released a statement saying that the spread of COVID-19 will increase by next week.” UNICEF and UNESCO are worried: “The long-term impact of extending the school lockdown risks ever greater harm to children, their future, and their communities. Sadly, on these fronts, the evidence is overwhelming.”
We ask your prayers for the South Sudanese as they face choices even more painful than our own. In addition, I expect that when schools can reopen there will be a sudden demand for aid to fund reorganizing, repairs, and restarting. I am going to write a check to AFRECS with the designation “school reopening”; perhaps other readers will be moved to do likewise.
News and Notes
From the Darfur Women Action Group
Darfur Women Action Group (DWAG) announced August 14 that heavy rain and flash floods had severely damaged homes and displaced people in areas including Khartoum, Blue Nile, and Darfur. Floods have killed at least 6 people, destroyed over 3,000 houses, and damaged property on an unimaginable level.
In Kabkabiya, over 500 homes have been destroyed by the rain with almost another 5,000 severely damaged. Those who have escaped the flooding are now taking shelter in schools and other people’s intact homes. Many more people are still missing, and their relatives are still searching for them. The five camps for internally displaced people (IDP’s) have been especially hard-hit by the disaster, with another 2,600 IDP shelters destroyed and over 13,000 damaged across all camps. All are in urgent need for assistance.
The UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) released an update last Tuesday highlighting the severity of the damage caused by the flash floods.
Arrival of Sarah Cleto Rial in Wau, first Woman Governor of a State in South Sudan
From The Rev. Kwathi Akol Ajawin in Annandale VA
The Honorable Sarah Cleto Rial, Governor of Western Bahr el Ghazal state, arrived from Juba in Wau Nar on August 11 to assume her new duties. She was accompanied by a delegation from the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement in Opposition (SPLM-IO) Political Bureau including D/Chairman and current Minister of Mining Hon. Henry Dilang Odwar and Chairperson of the National Students League Cde. Gai Mayen Luk, together with other senior members from the SPLM-IO.
According to a report on Facebook, they were received in big numbers by citizens of Western Bahr el Ghazal state in Wau town, demonstrating their support in achieving peace among the communities of Wau and their neighbors. The Facebook report concluded, “Thank you citizens of Wau Nar, for your great support. Your party SPLM-IO will deliver anything at its disposal to make sure citizens are living in peaceful coexistence. Viva!”
Kwathi Akol Ajawin, pastor of the African Sudanese Fellowship in Annandale, Virginia, commented, “We wish her well.” Sara Cleto Rial was the Co-Convenor of the South Sudanese Network for Peace and Reconciliation (SSDNRP) prior to last month, while living and working in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Publication of the Autobiography of Dr. Oliver Meru Duku:
Physician and Priest – (1935– 2013)
By The Rev. Richard Jones
The self-effacing portrait of a man who made his way from a traditional polygamous family in southern Sudan through British Colonial schools, followed by medical education at Tübingen University, to help build up the public health service of a fledgling African state and the theological schools of a church multiplying exuberantly during fifty years of devastating war.
Duku resisted government officials bent on Islamization but made friends with a traditional Muslim healer. He candidly recalls the internal struggles of a multiethnic group of first- and second-generation believers in Jesus as paramount chief over all tribes of the earth. As a Bible teacher, he ponders how the homelessness of civilian Sudanese populations in his lifetime seems to repeat the ancient pattern of God’s punishing his disloyal Chosen People by exile in Babylon.
“This autobiography shows how God calls and uses individuals in the most resistant milieu of ministry. I am convinced it can be useful for the Pastoral Dimension course taught at any Bible school or seminary”. The Very Rev. Samuel Galuak Marial, Principal, Bishop Gwynne College, Juba, South Sudan
“Oliver Duku’s autobiography will contribute to our goal: to collect, preserve, and make freely accessible biographical accounts and church histories – from oral and written sources – integral to a scholarly understanding of African Christianity.” Dr. Jonathan J. Bonk, Director, Dictionary of African Christian Biography, Boston University, USA
“This publication will contribute to the limited written record of the history of the church in Sudan and South Sudan.”
Rt. Rev. Anthony Dagasuk Poggo, Advisor to the Archbishop of Canterbury on Anglican Communion Affairs
To order, contact richard.j.jones@comcast.net
Soft cover, US$10 plus postage. Hardcover: US$40 plus postage
69 pages
ISBN 978-1-7923-2944-9
From Churchtimes
Gunmen kill dean and set fire to cathedral in South Sudan
by Rebecca Paveley , 14 August 2020
St Luke’s Cathedral, Makol Chuei, in Athooch diocese, before the attack on 27 July
The Dean of St Luke’s Cathedral, Makol Chuei, in South Sudan, the Very Revd Daniel Garang Ayuen, has been shot dead, together with 32 others, in an attack in which the cathedral and the entire village were set ablaze.
Gunmen stormed the cathedral compound in Makol Chuei, in the diocese of Athooch, in an attack two weeks ago. At least 14 women and children who had sought refuge in the church’s compound were killed. Six children were abducted by the attackers and later killed. In a later attack in a different village, Jalle, an archdeacon, the Ven. Jacob Amanjok, was killed, along with three pastors.
The All Africa Conference of Churches called on regional and international bodies to “take this attack as an assault on world peace, and demand for the full implementation of the long delayed peace agreement in South Sudan [News, 20 December 2019], to bring to a stop the intercommunal violence.”
The interim general secretary of the World Council of Churches, the Revd Professor Ioan Sauca, said: “After years of insecurity and instability, it should be clear that violence is not the solution to the challenges in South Sudan.”
From Al-Jazeera Live
Death toll from South Sudan soldiers, civilians clashes hits 127
The death toll from clashes between South Sudan security forces and armed civilians in the north-central Warrap state has risen to 127 [as of August 12]. At least 32 others were injured over the weekend when soldiers clashed with civilians refusing to be disarmed as part of a peace agreement.
Clashes erupted on Sunday when soldiers of the South Sudan People’s Defense Force tried to disarm civilians in the town of Tonj as part of a recent peace agreement, according to James Mabior, the town’s councilor. Some civilians refused to hand over their guns at a market, with a number of bystanders joining the fight that ensued, Mabior said. The fighting quickly spread to nearby villages, with armed civilians attacking an army base in the nearby town of Romic on Monday morning, Koang said.
The disarmament of civilians is part of a peace agreement signed between South Sudanese President Salva Kiir and opposition leader Riek Machar in February after many months of negotiations.
So far, a partial unity government has been formed and state governors have been appointed but parliament has yet to be reconstituted.
from the New Humanitarian 08/15/20
Flooding and fighting in South Sudan
President Salva Kiir declared a state of emergency [August 12] in central Jonglei and Pibor regions following flooding and communal violence. More than 200,000 people have been forced from their homes as water levels rose by 1.5 meters in some areas after heavy rains. Flooding has also affected neighboring Upper Nile and Unity states. The government has called on humanitarian agencies to provide immediate aid, but inter-communal unrest in Jonglei and Pibor – in which aid workers have been killed – will complicate operations. The conflict has displaced 100,000 people since the beginning of the year. They will miss the current planting season – deepening their food insecurity. Pre-positioned food stocks were also looted in the violence. South Sudan is in the lean period before the November harvest, and emergency levels of food needs are widespread. The US-funded famine monitor FEWS NET is anticipating the highest “catastrophe” level in some areas of Jonglei affected by fighting, and says “urgent and sustained food assistance” will be needed even after the harvest.
Reflection on the time of Coronavirus
By the Reverend Samuel G. Marial, Principal of Bishop Gwynne College 14th April 2020
Sudanese refugees observe physical distancing during a food and soap distribution at Ajuong Thok camp in South Sudan, April 2020. ©UNHCR/Elizabeth Marie Stuart
Coronavirus has shaken the whole world to its core. Science seems to have failed. People are dying in thousands even in countries where advancement in science is at its peak. Some plagues in the past used to be tied to a particular country or region. Now, as one can travel from New York to Capetown in a few hours, disease too travels far and wide.
South Sudan is a part of “global village” and has recorded a few cases of COVID-19. The leadership of the land has proactively put in place measures in forfending COVID-19. These measures include closing down learning institutions, churches, other places of worship, and other places of gatherings.
This order has sparked a loud uproar within Christian spheres. Some do not like the idea of halting prayer services on Sundays. In their view, it looks like the Devil has got an upper hand over the situation. Some question the appropriateness of the order. Some church members do not understand that the order is made as a way to eradicate this deadly plague through social distancing. That is a way available and affordable to save lives.
Social distancing is even more bearable if people keep in their homes and worship God with their loved ones.
COVID-19 is a global threat. The government of South Sudan is not a threat to faith. That is why the Primate of Episcopal Church of South Sudan, the Most Revd Dr. Justin Badi Arama, has instructed the adherents of ECSS to worship at their homesteads.
This is something that has never happened before. Praying at home is a new phenomenon, in the sense that Christians have not clearly learned that the real church is in the home.
However, there is a fear entailing that Christians may backslide or regress from their faith. It is an undeniable reality, in fact people may get used to this social distancing and some may likely say, “These days, I prefer praying at home.” It is a common language used by those who slowly glide away from their faith. As most of us in the country are pastoralists, it is our duty to look after the flocks. Who does not search his/her flocks when they get lost?
Church is a common worship space where members of a particular parish or cathedral normally congregate on Sunday. Home is a place for private or family worship, and that is where Christian faith is fully practiced.
Call for Prayers and Support
©UNICEF South Sudan/2020/Ongoro
Please keep the people of South Sudan and Sudan in your prayers, as the pandemic further complicates their already very difficult existence. We urge you to reach out to individuals and families you are already connected with through email, WhatsApp and other social media.
Please consider making a contribution to AFRECS, including the response to COVID-19. To do so click here. Meanwhile stay safe where you are in the United States.