South Sudan IDPs lack basic necessities as they deal with loss and trauma

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With a gunshot wound to his arm, 40-year-old Ngong walked 60 km over three days before arriving in Gogrial, a town in Warrap State in South Sudan.  World Concern staff met him here, as they distributed emergency food rations to thousands of displaced families arriving from the violence-ravaged Abyei region. Ngong said he and his family fled their home in a village near Abyei on May 19. He and five other men returned to retrieve some clothing and belongings from their home, but were shot at by soldiers. “We left everything that we carried and ran. The five colleagues were shot and died instantly. I was shot in my right arm but kept running, holding my arm until I reached a village where I slept for a night without first aid,” Ngong said. Thankfully, Ngong had been reunited with his wife and three children on the way to Gogrial. Many families have not been so lucky. Seventeen-year-old Arual is attempting to care for her 4-month old baby, along with her younger brother and sister, as they were separated from her mother when they fled Abyei on foot. “We have not heard anything about my mother, whether she is still alive or dead,” she said.  World Concern and other aid agencies are scrambling to register displaced families and distribute food and other items to them as they arrive in ill-equipped and already strained host communities in the south. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimates 113,000 people have fled the disputed border region of Abyei. In addition to these new arrivals, hundreds of thousands of returnees have been migrating south in advance of July 9, when South Sudan will officially become its own country. After a fairly peaceful referendum in January in which South Sudan voted overwhelmingly to secede from the north, violence erupted in May as the Sudan Armed Forces and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army clashed over Abyei. Many people fled the violence with nothing but the clothes they were wearing. World Concern is providing IDPs with a month’s supply of sorghum, beans, oil, and salt. Families with infants are also receiving Plumpy’doz®, a ready-to-use nutritional supplementary food to prevent malnutrition. “This crisis is complicating an already complex problem,” said World Concern Sudan Country Director Peter Macharia. “Those displaced from Abyei and those returning from the north require urgent help to start their lives once again. Some have vowed never to go back, but even those who may want to stay for a little while and watch things unfold before they decide if they will go back, will also need help as they have no idea of when they will able to return to their former homes.” In addition to food and water, Macharia said people are in need of mosquito nets, cooking sets, soap, blankets, buckets and jerrycans. Food and fuel prices have skyrocketed and are hindering the transportation of food and supplies. OCHA estimates that the cost of staples, such as sorghum, has increased by 40 percent in local markets. Forecasted heavy rains could make some roads impassable, further limiting the arrival of supplies. For more information on World Concern’s response in South Sudan, visit www.worldconcern.org/feedsudan.