NEWS FROM
LUTHERAN WORLD RELIEF
June 23, 2004
For more information contact Jonathan Frerichs at (410) 230-2802.
In this news release:
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Abdullah is one of the refugees who is helping put up tents in the refugee camps in Chad.
Photo: Hege Opseth, NCA/ACT International |
URGENT RELIEF ARRIVES IN DARFUR, SUDAN, BUT REGION’S NEEDS ARE “OVERWHELMING”
Khartoum and Baltimore, June 23, 2004 — A planeload of food, plastic sheeting and vehicles reached the troubled Darfur region of Sudan this week. The relief cargo, destined for camps near Nyala, is part of a growing interchurch aid effort that Lutheran World Relief supports.
The aid program is now serving 125,000 people chased from their homes by militia forces. It is also assisting 10,000 villagers to return to 23 villages burned down by the militia, known as the Janjaweed, in one district.
For the Darfur emergency, Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox aid agencies have joined forces – under two global alliances, Action by Churches Together and Caritas Internationalis. LWR President Kathryn Wolford is co-chairperson of ACT.
The crisis is being called the worst current humanitarian crisis in the world. Some 1.2 million people are displaced inside Sudan and 200,000 others have crossed into the neighboring country of Chad, according to the latest United Nations estimates.
Restaurants and grain mills have also been established in the refugee camps. "People who have escaped from Darfur have an incredible sense of survival. They don't give up," says Kjell Moen of NCA's emergency stand-by team.
Photo: Hege Opseth, NCA/ACT International |
Militia raids on villages, which sparked the crisis, also threaten aid efforts, an ACT assessment team found last month.
“Protection [stands] between the people and their ability to survive next month,” team leader Nils Carstensen reported. Insecurity makes humanitarian access difficult, he noted, and displaced people under threat of attack from Janjaweed horsemen cannot provide for themselves. A trip to get firewood may end in rape or kidnapping.
“The needs in Darfur are overwhelming,” the ACT team reported, “they are acute, they span all known humanitarian sectors and the population in need is scattered…over often difficult areas.”
Aid efforts by ACT members so far are modest. There is minimal operational capacity in the region and local authorities are sometimes hostile toward aid workers.
The overall goal for the work that LWR is supporting is to assist 300,000 people with water, shelter, health care, seeds, tools, educational supplies and counseling for victims of trauma. LWR has provided $40,000 from emergency funds in the last month and is asking for public donations. A further $75,000 has been given by members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
The Sudan Council of Churches and another local agency are mobilizing volunteers – 60 so far – to find and assist the neediest cases in large camp communities.
The imminent onset of the rainy season will further hinder access to the region and put an added premium on water, shelter and sanitation for crowded camps. Rains also mean that Darfur’s displaced people have missed this year’s planting season, ensuring at least 20 more months of the current food crisis there.
Darfur is a predominantly Muslim area the size of Texas. In this one of Sudan’s several secessionist regions, the Khartoum government and militia allies in Darfur, who have an Arabic heritage and include nomadic groups, are fighting with people of African heritage who are largely farmers.
Contribute by Mail or Telephone:
Lutheran World Relief
Darfur/Sudan
P.O. Box 17061
Baltimore, MD 21298-9832
800-LWR-LWR-2
Contribute Online Using LWR's Secure Server:
'JAVA' JUSTICE ON TV IN CALIFORNIA
Baltimore, June 23, 2004 — Lutherans in southern and central California, and other Californian coffee drinkers with a nose for justice, will be able to learn more about fair trade and see the Lutheran World Relief Coffee Project on television on June 30, 2004.
The nightly news program, "Life and Times," on the Los Angeles PBS affiliate, KCET, will air a fair trade coffee story June 30th. Broadcast time is 7:00 p.m.
Kathleen Rudrud, member of a Thousand Oaks parish, took part in the LWR study group to Nicaragua that appears in the program. Other footage shows small-scale farmers who supply the LWR Coffee Project and a West Coast congregation that is one of 4,000 parishes participating in the project.
