Photo via dresdencitytours.de

Bishop calls for better provisions for returning refugees in Sudan

Bishop Akio Johnson Mutek of the Diocese of Torit in the South of Sudan has called on the government, the United Nations and other international aid agencies to increase assistance to the returning war refugees and former expelled peoples, reports CISA News.

People are suffering from lack of food, water and medical care, said Bishop Mutek, the German-based international Catholic pastoral charity, Aid to the Church in Need (ACN).

Better care is needed above all for children, the elderly, and for expectant and nursing mothers. There is also an urgent need for schools, he added. Grazing flocks of livestock that were herded into the region from the north and are destroying the fields, posing an additional problem, since the people live overwhelmingly from agriculture.

It is an emergency situation that must be brought under control, since otherwise new conflicts could arise, Bishop Mutek warned.

He described the return of the refugees as the "fulfilment of a collective dream". The peace accord of January 2005 has at last made possible the gradual return of the refugees and the expelled who, during the course of the bloody civil war that had plagued the country for over 20 years, had either been forced to take refuge elsewhere within Sudan or had fled abroad.

The number of internal refugees alone is estimated at around 5 million, he said, adding that the Catholic Church "welcomed" the returning refugees "with open arms". The uprooted people had always been in the hearts and thoughts of the diocese, even when they were physically far away. With her "limited resources", the Church had always sought "to make heard the voices of those who were calling for peace" and had "never lost sight of the refugees and expelled", the bishop said.

Now that it is at last possible for the people to return to their homelands, Bishop Mutek believes that everything must be done to prevent violence flaring. A "community of love" must be created, he urged, otherwise hatred could "create a pressure that might ultimately explode into violence and the destruction of life and social order."

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[03/19/2008]

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