An era of displacement

Kenyans displaced by violence awaiting aid and shelter at a camp established at the Nairobi Show Grounds. Photo: REUTERS/Mike Hutchings, courtesy www.alertnet.org

Story by Chris Herlinger/CWS

We live in an era of displacement.

Nearly 40 million people are displaced and uprooted worldwide. Almost 14 million people are refugees and asylum seekers, according to the World Refugee Survey, and 24.5 million others are displaced within their own country due to conflict, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center.

Sudan has the highest number of internally displaced persons – a total of some 5 million in Darfur and from the North-South conflict – and is also the source of a large number of refugees. Another country with a large number of its citizens displaced is Iraq, where 4.6 million are displaced, with roughly half still in Iraq and the other half in neighboring countries. Afghanistan also is the source of large numbers of refugees, two million of whom are living in neighboring Pakistan.

In all of these locales – Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, as well as
others – Church World Service is providing assistance and working toward durable
and permanent solutions to the problems prompted by displacement – problems caused by war and civil conflict (the largest causes of displacement) or natural disasters, like flooding or earthquakes.

A woman with her children near Zalingei, at a camp for people displaced from their homes and villages by the violence that has ravaged parts of the Darfur region of western Sudan over the past five years. The camp is a site of CWS-supported programs. Photo: Chris Herlinger/CWS

In Sudan, Church World Service is particularly concerned with the ongoing situation in the western region of Darfur. There, the humanitarian crisis is entering its sixth year – becoming, in effect, a “chronic” emergency.

The United Nations estimates that more than 200,000 people have been killed or have died due to malnutrition and other causes attributed to the humanitarian crisis in Darfur. More than 2.2 million have been driven from their homes to live in camps, and nearly four million are now dependent on food aid – some due to the collapsed economy and trade in the region.

Among those who have been displaced in the last year is Mariam, a 40-year-old mother and grandmother who has been living at a displacement camp at the edge of Zalingei in West Darfur, where Church World Service-supported work is underway in a joint ecumenical effort by Action by Churches Together (ACT) International and Caritas International.

Speaking under a plastic tarp just as one of the morning drizzles of Darfur’s rainy season began, Mariam recounted a story all too common in Darfur: She said she was displaced from attacks that resulted in the deaths of her husband and son-in-law, forcing her to support a household of six children – five of her own and a grandchild.

Given continued insecurity in her home region – and the need to eke out a living without a male breadwinner – Mariam said she would not yet opt to return to her village 93 miles away. In the camp, her daughter is receiving free schooling, while school fees in her village were difficult to pay.

Amid countless personal tragedies and challenges, CWS-supported work continues to help Darfur’s displaced, in the areas of water and sanitation, health and nutrition, emergency preparedness and response, protection and peacebuilding, agricultural support, and education.

In Kenya, despite being displaced by violence, Ester Kabura has resumed her small business selling tomatoes and other foods – now to fellow displaced people at Moi Airbase camp. Photo: George Arende/CWS

In neighboring Kenya, disputed national elections in late December triggered two months of ethnic violence that left at least 1,000 people dead and forced some 300,000 people to flee their homes and communities.

Church World Service immediately began working with partners to help meet the emergency needs of some 42,200 displaced people, with food, blankets, and mattresses, as well as psychosocial care for some of the most traumatized. Church World Service has helped to provide 800 households with a two-month supply of maize and beans, cooking oil, two blankets, as well as some educational assistance; and another 1,500 people with food and non-food items, and shelter reconstruction.

With a broader ecumenical coalition, CWS is helping to meet the needs of some 30,000 families displaced in Kenya, with supplementary feeding for children age five and younger and for elderly people; water tanks and plastic latrine slabs; tents and plastic sheeting; and support for economic livelihood recovery.

In other parts of the world, CWS is also making inroads to help the displaced.

Take war-torn Iraq. Church World Serviceis pressing the U.S. government to increase humanitarian aid to Iraq’s displaced, and to keep its commitment to resettle 12,000 Iraqis to the United States during fiscal year 2008.

In Iraq itself, CWS is also supporting the work of three Action by Churches Together members as well as three other partner agencies working to assist war-affected Iraqis. CWS’s support includes emergency medical distribution to some 48,000 patients who will receive needed drugs; assistance to Iraqi non-governmental agencies trying to expand and improve their capacity to respond to humanitarian needs in Iraq; support for assistance to facilities helping vulnerable children; and support for food baskets through much of this year for almost 100 families that have accepted orphan children into their households.

Looking east from Iraq to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Church World Service and its nearly 30-year-old Pakistan/Afghanistan Community Health Project are working in preparation for the expected departure of at least half of the some three million Afghan refugees: Pakistan is pressing all Afghan refugees, most of whom live in camps, to return home by 2009. Many face return to rural areas of Afghanistan that lack even the most basic health services.

“We have a window to talk with Afghan refugee men and women before repatriation, when it will become harder especially to talk about health,” says CWS Pakistan/Afghanistan program staffer Dennis Joseph. “We are telling people, ‘This is the time to absorb information.’”

Intensive community education is being complemented by enhanced training of medical, paramedical, and other project staff – many of whom are Afghan refugees themselves – as well as Community Health Committees, and Male and Female Community Health Workers, who together carry out the CWS work.

The CWS project currently serves over 57,000 Afghan refugees through three Basic Health Units in three camps in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province.

CWS is concerned that these communities not lose their substantial improvements
in health, including: effective control of tuberculosis, malaria, and leishmaniasis;
a dramatic decline in maternal and infant mortality at childbirth; and high rates of vaccination against preventable diseases.

Your congregation can help displaced people by having a CWS Tools & Blankets offering and supporting the CROP Hunger Walk.