The Roman Catholic Bishop of Rumbek in southern Sudan has said the region is not ready to receive the refugees returning to their homes at the heels of a January peace treaty that ended the nation's 21-year civil war.

According to Bishop Caesar Mazzolari, half-million refugees have already returned from the north to their homes in the south, but have faced infrastructure damages that debilitated their journey.

He adds that many miles of roads have been abandoned and are in disrepair, in addition to a lack of wells, there is also a non-existent education system, and no medicine to be given out.

"This [church] mission lives on the love and charity of the priest [and] the sisters, and they manage to be cordial and accommodating [to] everybody. But the endurance, the capacity to serve these people, is diminishing day by day because of the numbers [who need help]," Bishop Mazzolari said.

In a recent interview with the United Nations Integrated Regional Information Networks, Bishop Rumbek clearly felt that much difficult work lies ahead for the nation in the preliminary stage of recovery.

The Bishop adds that "military people" east of Rumbek in Yirol county who have not yet disarmed are compounding problems. "People are hiding their weapons, and so because of the disenchantment we have conflicts everywhere."

He also has said that there are positives in the region, like the work being done by the church and non-governmental organisations that are offering aid.

"The church is trying to expand the availability [of] education, health and of course our main task – evangelisation. But we need to be sided [supported] by many more NGOs," he adds.

He laments that many of the nation’s intellectuals are afraid to return because of the extreme poverty, lack of schools for their children, and no medicine.

He also said that only about US$25 million of US$500 million in promised aid has been received. "Has the international community lost interest?" he said.

Yesterday, International donors pledged to give $4.5 billion in aid to Sudan during the course of the next two years.

"All this glowing and glamorous chorus [saying] ‘Peace has come to Sudan’ is not true. It has not come. We have to bring it. It has not actually entered the lives of the people," he said.

"All they continue to repeat is the word ‘chok,’ which means hunger. And if you tell them that you will give something later they laugh, because they say there will be nothing later."

He hopes that the communication between the nation’s leadership and the people can improve soon.

To the international community, the bishop makes this appeal:

"Come and see – without being afraid – the reality of a humanity that has been forsaken. It takes the real solidarity of people who take a risk to be able to help these people get on their feet through both material resources [and] the human resource of training them."

Comparing the situation in southern Sudan to Darfur in the west, Bishop Mazzolari says that the south is also experiencing misery and must be assessed more objectively.

"You would see that southern Sudan is full of Darfur without the same violence."





Francis Helguero
Ecumenical Press