Humans of South Sudan

Humans of South Sudan

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How can I help South Sudanese refugees?

There are still more South Sudanese refugees who need your help. You can help refugees from South Sudan by showing South Sudan’s Conflict Survivors in your church or by giving today.

Thank you for your prayers and giving which are already making a difference.

The people you’ll meet in this story have survived the conflict in South Sudan. Now in refugee camps, they’re still in danger from disease and starvation. And there are thousands more like them.

Susan

A woman in a wheelchair outside a shack made out of straw.
Susan's joy is amazing. She lives an isolated life, yet her faith is unwavering.

After driving through shrubbery, we abandon the car and walk for almost an hour. We fight through the grass and branches as we head further away from civilisation. I am about a mile from the border with South Sudan. Surely no-one can be living here.

But I am amazed to find a hut, providing barely any protection from the rain. And inside, a solitary woman. Susan.

Susan has leprosy and her hands are beginning to curl in on themselves. I ask her how she ended up here. “I was chased by the government and the rebels,” she says. “I am not able to walk, so I started crawling. I never made it to the camps.”

Because Susan hasn’t made it to an official settlement to register as a refugee, she’s not eligible for UN food relief. You’ve been providing her with emergency food rations – support that has most likely saved her life.

Click here to watch South Sudan's Conflict Survivors

South Sudan's Conflict Survivors DVD featuring a group of boys high-fiving

You’ve also helped train the pastoral activists who found Susan. “I don’t get many visitors here. The team share the word of God with me, and they pray with me. That is how I get my strength.” As I walk away, I know we’re leaving her lonely, but never alone.

Joice

Family: Mother of four children, including five-month-old twins, Sarah and Sharon.

Location: Bidi Bidi, the world’s largest refugee camp with a quarter of a million South Sudanese refugees.

Condition: Suffered from edema and pre-eclampsia while pregnant with her twins. Untreated, these conditions can be fatal.

How you helped: Joice’s conditions were detected because you paid for a highly accurate blood pressure monitor to be given to a volunteer health worker in Joice’s community. The volunteer found out Joice had dangerously high blood pressure. He kept monitoring her throughout her pregnancy, and at eight months she was given a C-section which was vital for her survival.

What Joice says: “Without this device, I was going to face death. I am giving you thanks. I am now okay, and my children are okay.”

A South Sudanese mother hugs her twins in Uganda

Nancy

Fourteen-year-old Nancy hops up to us at impressive speed, her foot scuffing along ground. Her right foot is twisted and she can’t walk on it. The uneven ground is hard to move across. It’s clear Nancy can’t move far from the temporary home she is living in.

Because of her disability, Nancy couldn’t go to school. “Children would tease me because I’m not able to move,” Nancy says. You’ve helped BMS partner Hope Health Action transport wheelchairs to people like Nancy, and now Nancy can get to school.

“I am very happy with my wheelchair. It can take me anywhere,” says Nancy. “I want to be a nurse.” It’s the most confidently she’s spoken.

A South Sudanese girl in a blue wheel chair in front of a tree in Uganda.

We want the UK Church to be at the forefront of raising awareness of the conflict in South Sudan. You can help. Our 2019 appeal resource South Sudan’s Conflict Survivors is now available to share with friends and to run at your church’s harvest service this year. You can also download this story to share with others or subscribe to Engage to read more about the humans behind the South Sudan crisis. Together we can make sure these incredible conflict survivors are not forgotten.

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Want to share this story? Why not print it out to share with your church!

Original article featured in Issue 44 of Engage, the BMS World Mission Magazine. Edited for the website by Melanie Webb.

South Sudan: windows of prayer

South Sudan's Conflict Survivors

Your church can help refugees from South Sudan living in Uganda, this Harvest or at any time of year.

Find out more

South Sudan:

windows of prayer

Praying for this

The peace deal signed by warring parties went unheeded. Hoping for harmony can feel naïve. But BMS World Mission’s supporters are armed with the power to pray.

Annet gave birth on the road. She was heavily pregnant when she was forced to flee from her home in South Sudan. “Our health facilities were closed. I didn’t have any tests,” she explained. Her mother boiled some water for her in a jug – that was all the help she had. With a newborn baby, she then faced the impossible task of finding enough food. “If the war had not broken out, I would not have gone through this,” said Annet. “Giving birth on the way. Not being able to feed my baby.”

If the war had not broken out, I would not have gone through this

Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the world’s youngest nation, and the conflict rages on. South Sudan celebrated independence just seven years ago, but a dispute between the country’s President and his former deputy quickly developed into a broader conflict between ethnic groups. Since war broke out at the end of 2013, over one third of the population has been displaced.

Men building with red bricks
South Sudanese people are having to rebuild their lives in refugee camps, like this one in Uganda.

Scrolling through the figures in endless news cycles is dispiriting. It seems impossible to help when thousands of miles separate you from those in need. And when the news seems oblivious to the suffering, it can even be hard to know how to pray. Thankfully, BMS local workers are in the refugee camps. They’re sharing stories of the individuals behind the overwhelming statistics, so that we can pray for people by name.

We can pray for mothers like Annet. Annet doesn’t want any mother to experience the trauma she did. Let’s pray that BMS workers can get healthy, sustaining food to babies at risk of malnourishment. These workers are providing health checks to pregnant women – the kind of prenatal tests that Annet desperately needed. We need to pray that these checks can reach every woman who needs them.

A woman holds a baby and smiles.
Annet gave birth to her baby on the road. BMS-funded projects will mean that pregnant women can access vital health checks.

We can pray for people with disabilities, like Abbe Rose. She escaped, along with her husband and children, after some of their family members were killed. The journey they made is unimaginable: Abbe Rose wasn’t even able to bring her wheelchair. But, Abbe was given a wheelchair by her new church – South Sudanese Christians living in the camps and helping themselves – as well as each other. Abbe Rose can now get to church meetings and medical appointments and meet with friends – things that were previously impossible. “If I’m sick or my child is sick, she can push me,” Abbe explains. “We can go together.” Please pray for more people like Abbe to be given the mobility they have been denied.

A woman sits in a wheelchair
Abbe Rose’s wheelchair means she can get to medical appointments and church meetings.

These stories are windows into a conflict that is overwhelming in its severity and scope.

We can be overwhelmed by them, or we can use them both to pray for the challenges ahead and to thank God for the blessings BMS workers have seen. “I had no choice but to leave it to God,” says Annet of her struggles. It is a privilege to bring her situation, and that of others too, to God in prayer. Please pray right now with us:

  1. Please pray that malnourished babies get the nourishing food they desperately need.
  2. Please pray for people with disabilities, that their needs would not be overlooked. Pray for wheelchairs and other liberating blessings for those who need them.
  3. Many South Sudanese parents are concerned for their children’s education – the key to a secure future. Pray that families would be able to continue their children’s schooling.
  4. Pray for our BMS workers, that they are encouraged as they continue to deliver projects and interventions for those in need.
  5. Pray for peace between warring factions in South Sudan, that all fighting would come to an end.

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