S. Sudanese in camps pray for sustainable peace, unity

December 20, 2018 (ADJUMANI) – South Sudanese refugees living in Uganda have appealed to the country’s leaders to ensure peace prevails following the recent signing of the revitalized peace accord.

“We want peace. War has totally destroyed our nation,” said John Malak, a 31-year old refugee living at Nyumanzi settlement camp.

Malak is one of the over 43,000 South Sudanese refugees in Nyumanzi, a refugee camps in Adjumani, a district located northwest of Uganda.

“Let us shun the use of violence to settle our differences. We have to live in peace and the peace must start from our homes,” said Daud Gideon from Remembering The Ones We Lost (ROWL), while reading 21 of over 6,700 names on their website.

A public memorial with a mission to remember all the victims of the conflict and armed violence in South Sudan, ROWL currently compiles names of all the people who either died in armed struggles or generalized forms of violence in the East African nation since 1955.

About a third of South Sudan’s 12 million population have fled their homes since the civil war erupted in 2013 between soldiers loyal to President Salva Kiir and the country ex-vice president, Riek Machar.

However, although various international organizations have documented numerous examples of mass killings, many of which were ethnically targeted, there is no official death toll for the war.

But estimates of the number of people killed in the recent civil war, which started in December 2013, range from 50,000 – 400,000 deaths.

“Absence of peace in homes and in within our various communities is what will lead to violence in the entire country,” further stressed Daud.

John Achiek from the Pentecostal Church of Sudan, said he was concerned about rivalry among the Dinka and Nuer ethnic groups.

“Unless we end this bitter rivalries, peace will always elude us,” he said.

Michael Duot Garang, a pastor from the Anglican Church of South Sudan, urged the congregation to pray for all the country’s leaders.

“We need to pray for our leaders to ensure what happened in South Sudan does not happen again,” Garang said, through a translator.

Meanwhile, the acting chairperson for Nyumanzi resettlement camp urged the people to pray so that their living conditions are improved.

After opening in January 2014, Nyumanzi has become the largest refugee settlement in Adjumani district in terms of population size.

But despite their relatively recent arrival, residents are already well-established and a strong community has emerged in which refugee households actively collaborate with each other to share resources.

However, although many of the refugees are resilient, gaps in critical sectors, such as education and water, health and sanitation, persist and undermine refugees’ ability to cope with their displacement.

South Sudan is Africa’s largest refugee crisis and one of its most seriously under-funded. Last week, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) launched an appeal for $2.7 billion to assist over two million refugees.

(ST)