BY tomorrow, 10,000 people at risk from starvation will have received emergency cash grants from the Scottish Government via Christian Aid to help them survive the humanitarian crisis in South Sudan.
While the Labour Government has controversially cut international aid, the Scottish Government has continued to provide support for people fleeing war-torn Sudan.
In the last four months, Christian Aid has received £225,000 from the Scottish Government, specifically to help the most vulnerable people arriving in Aweil, in northern South Sudan.
One of them is Akech, who escaped with her six remaining children after her husband and son were killed by members of the RSF army.
They lost their lives trying to prevent the men, armed with guns, forcing their way into the family home. Those vital minutes gave Akech just enough time to run for her life, with her six children.
“If I’d have stayed, they would have killed us all,” she said. “They wanted to rape me but they turned to killing my husband and son.
“I am still crying for the death of my son.”
She added: “The war now is also hunger, that’s part of the war in Sudan.”
Akech was pregnant at the time – her youngest child will never meet her father.
The family initially fled to a refugee camp by the border, where her baby was born, but tensions in the camp prompted them to move on.
They are now safely in South Sudan where the local community has found them a house near her husband’s relatives.
The family have also received emergency cash assistance, thanks to the Scottish Government’s Humanitarian Emergency Fund. The project is being delivered by Christian Aid through a local partner, Coalition for Humanity.
Since the start of the year, Christian Aid has been distributing small emergency cash grants to refugees and returnees identified as being highly vulnerable – with the first wave of funding (£125,000) distributed in January and further funds currently being distributed following an extension of the funding of £100,000.
For Akech and her family, the money is “life changing”.
As well as using the money to buy food and send her children to school, Akech is buying groundnuts to turn into a paste, like peanut butter, for sale in the local market.
Head of Christian Aid Scotland Val Brown said the funding from the Scottish Government was making a huge impact, giving people hope and choices, during “very dark times”.
“Sudan is home to the world’s largest displacement crisis but we’re hearing very little in the news about what’s going on and how millions of people have been forced to leave the country, seeking safety,” she said. “People like Akech have literally had to run for their lives from the horrors of war.”
The two-year war has so far claimed over 150,000 lives and the number of people in urgent need of help is rising daily. However, she added that there was a “real entrepreneurial spirit” in South Sudan so it was no surprise that Akech had decided to spend some of the money creating a micro-_business, so she can generate a small income for her family.
By tomorrow, Christian Aid estimates it will have reached 10,000 people with the emergency cash grants, funded by the Scottish Government, in addition to improving support services in the community to try to reduce levels of gender-based violence and make women and girls feel safer.
Brown said the humanitarian crisis in South Sudan was “complicated” and had many causes including conflict and climate change.
“Millions of people urgently need help and the situation is still unstable,” she said. “However, there is hope that South Sudan can move towards a more stable and secure future, with ongoing international diplomatic action and humanitarian, peacebuilding and development partnerships which support locally led efforts to strengthen local communities.”
