Last week famine was officially declared in parts of South Sudan in what aid agencies said was a “man-made” crisis caused in no small part by the country’s ongoing conflict. Against that backdrop, World Vision Australia’s chief advocate Tim Costello believes churches have a key role in bringing peace to South Sudan. DAVID ADAMS reports…
South Sudan, the world’s newest nation, has spent most of its short existence since gaining independence in 2011 wracked by an ongoing, brutal conflict which has already taken tens of thousands of lives and seen more than a million heading across international borders to escape the violence.
And now parts of the country’s north are officially facing famine, a word which has not – in official terms at least – been the case over a crisis anywhere in the world for six years.
RESULT OF A CONFLICT: Top – Displaced children at the Malakal UN compound; Below – World Vision distributing rations to South Sudanese refugees in northern Uganda. PICTURES: World Vision.
“[The church] have recognised that their challenge is to actually transcend violence and tribe and preach the Gospel…of peace and reconciliation, whatever the cost.”
– Tim Costello, chief advocate for World Vision Australia.
Humanitarian agencies have been quick to point out the man-made nature of the emergency which is already seeing some 100,000 people face starvation and a further million people classified as being on the very brink of doing so.
Tim Costello, World Vision Australia’s chief advocate, is among them.
“It is literally a crisis that is man-made,” he says, going on to note that, with the world’s attention understandably focused on other crises such as that in Syria, the ongoing situation in South Sudan has become a “forgotten crisis”. “Famine…has crept up on us.”
But Rev Costello, who recently spent several days in the country, sees that while the international community has a key role to play in addressing the food shortages and saving people from starvation in the short term, in the longer term the answers to the country’s problems – in particular, the ongoing fighting – must come from within. And the church, he says, will have to play a key role in that.
“[I] believe the church is the only trans-national group in South Sudan without blood on its hands. It has to find a way to model an alternative [to the violence]. It is really is only the church that can do this.”
Rev Costello says church leaders he met during his recent visit – including Rev Peter Gai Lual Marrow, chairman of the South Sudan Council of Churches, and Anglican Bishop Enoch Tombe Stephen – are aware of the role the churches have in bringing peace to the nation.
“They know they have to do it…” he says. “They have recognised that their challenge is to actually transcend violence and tribe and preach the Gospel…of peace and reconciliation, whatever the cost…It has to be a grass-roots overcoming of ethnic hatred…”
Rev Costello says during a recent conversation with New Zealander David Shearer – the UN’s special representative for South Sudan, Mr Shearer urged World Vision to do what it can to help support the churches in that peace-making role, because, says Rev Costello, “there’s no real other signs of hope at the moment”.
While the famine is thus far officially confined to parts of the oil rich Unity State in the country’s north, Rev Costello says he was shocked what he encountered when he visited camps around the capital Juba where internally displaced people (IDPs) who had fled their homes because of the violence were ensconced.
“The IDP camps were the worst I have seen and I’ve been to Jordan, Lebanon, to lots of bad IDP camps, but the conditions…were just appalling. I was quite profoundly shocked by the condition of people and the condition of the camps.”
Despite the fact that many of the people in the camps had homes to return to, such was their fear of what was taking place in their country that they told Rev Costello they would rather live in the squalid conditions within the camps than risk leaving.
As well as keeping people in camps, the ongoing conflict also means that humanitarian agencies such as World Vision aren’t able to use roads to transport aid.
“It is so chronic that we basically have to fly all our aid out of Juba – to Malakal or Unity – because the roads are too insecure…” Rev Costello says. “But we have to keep the lifeline of aid alive whilst we force [the South Sudanese] to solve it.”
Tim Costello, chief advocate of World Vision Australia, with South Sudanese church leaders.
While there’s no doubt that the key to the future of South Sudan lies with the South Sudanese, Rev Costello notes that the support of the South Sudanese diaspora – living in nations including Canada, the US and Australia – for peace-building initiatives is also critical.
To that end, he’s been involved in bringing together leaders of the South Sudanese community in Australia for that very purpose; to ensure that they don’t inflame what is already a fragile situation.
He says while the response depends on what’s happening in South Sudan, his message to South Sudanese Christians is that the various ethnic groups must understand that the Cross “reconciles and deals with violence”.
“That message is getting well received.”
Meanwhile, Rev Costello said they will need the provision of international aid to keep people alive.
“The humanitarian imperative is to buy time while we do this,” he says.
Rev Peter Gai Lual Marrow’s name and position have been corrected.
