Speaking to the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, Bishop Alex Lodiong Sakor Eyobo of Yei, South Sudan, was critical of tactics being used in the war between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF).

Fighting broke out between two rival armed factions in the capital in April 2023. According to the Center for Preventive Action, the civil war has so far triggered the deaths of almost 15,000 people. More than 8.2 million have been displaced, with about 2 million of the displaced finding refuge in equally volatile environments like Chad, South Sudan and Ethiopia.

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"There's no food for South Sudanese refugees returning from Sudan due to the ongoing civil war," said the 45-year-old mother of four, revealing that most families returning home from Sudan go for days without food.

"I am always worried about food because since I came in July, I have lost a baby to malnutrition. She was very sick."

Wol and her family had fled South Sudan in 2014 after the country broke into civil war in December 2013, primarily fueled by ethnic divisions, with soldiers loyal to President Salva Kiir battling those loyal to Vice President Riek Machar.

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Some of the children have diarrhoea from eating them. Half the village is eating their seed stocks too, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NCR) reports.

While NRC is helping around 100,000 South Sudanese, those eating their seed stocks means there will be few seeds to plant next growing season.

Speaking to the Portuguese delegation of international charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), Beta Almendra says that "there is a dire lack of international support.

"Some non-governmental organisations are withdrawing from the country," says the 52-year-old Portuguese nun.

She tells ACN that the South Sudan is not stable, and people are not able to walk alone.

The bishop of the diocese of El Obeid, Yunan Tombe Trily, is appealing to Caritas and in particular Caritas in the South Sudan to ask NGOs and UN agencies for humanitarian aid promptly.

After postponing his trip last July, Pope Francis has rescheduled his trip to Congo and his ecumenical trip to South Sudan for 13 January to 5 February, the Vatican announced Wednesday.

With the Pope's mobility still impaired, the new schedule for the trip has been trimmed slightly from what was planned in July.

As planned for years, Francis will travel to South Sudan with Anglican Archbishop Justin Welby of Canterbury and with the Rev. Iain Greenshields, moderator of the general assembly of the Church of Scotland.

The Church leaders hope their joint visit will encourage warring leaders to live up to the commitments they have made in a series of accords and finally offer their people peace.

Welby and Greenshields both welcomed word that the trip would finally go ahead.

"I am genuinely humbled at the opportunity to support our brothers and sisters in South Sudan in the search for peace, reconciliation and justice," Greenshields said in a statement. He noted the Church of Scotland had been invited to "represent the Presbyterian family due to its strong partnership with the Presbyterian Church of South Sudan".

Welby, for his part, added that all three leaders shared a desire to "stand in solidarity" with the South Sudanese people.

In one of his more memorable gestures, Francis invited South Sudan's rival leaders to the Vatican in 2019 for a prayer. During their meeting, he knelt down and kissed their feet while begging them to make peace.

In February 2022, a new inter-ethnic conflict broke out between the Ngok Dinka of Abyei Administrative Area and the Twiic Mayardit Dinka of Warrap State, over a land claim over a stretch of a local market.

According to local sources, Fides reports that violence resumed on October 10, burning houses and looting property, causing the loss of life and the displacement of thousands of people on both sides.

Sources

• Norwegian Refugee Council
• Fides
• Aid to the Church in Need
• Catholic News Service
• All Africa

Bishop-elect Christian Carlassare (44) had a private meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican on Monday.

Carlassare's episcopal consecration is scheduled for March 25.

It was deferred after the shooting, which occurred when two armed men fired multiple bullets at his door, gaining access to his room in a block that houses priests serving at the Diocese of Rumbek's Holy Family Cathedral.

In a video recording from his hospital bed the day after the attack, Carlassare described the shooting as life-threatening. He also called for reconciliation and "justice with the same heart of God" among the people of Rumbek.

"It will take some time for my legs to be able again to walk, but I assure you that I will be back and I will be with you."

After initial treatment in Rumbek, he was airlifted to Kenya's capital, Nairobi.

Speaking from his hospital bed a few weeks later, Carlassare again stressed his desire for peace.

He said he was imploring God for an end to "violence, division, [and] selfish desires" in the diocese of Rumbek.

"I bend low in front of God to intercede for the church of Rumbek. I pray for the conversion of sinners.

"I offer the pain I'm going through so that the Lord our God may purify the church of Rumbek from all errors and things like these may happen no more; no room for violence, division, [and] selfish desires that come from the devil."

After several weeks in hospital, Carlassare was discharged on 21 May.

Originally from Italy, the South Sudan bishop-elect had served as a Comboni missionary priest in South Sudan's Malakal diocese since 2005.

The Diocese of Rumbek became vacant in July 2011 upon the death of Bishop Cesare Mazzolari, who was also a Comboni Missionary.

South Sudan police detained six people in relation to the shooting.

A priest was among them: Father John Mathiang, who served as Rumbek's diocesan coordinator.

Two of the six suspects were freed at the beginning of this month because because of a "lack of evidence against them."

Pope Francis will be visiting South Sudan's capital city of Juba in early July.

Source

• CNA
• Image: CNA

In a message to ACI Africa, Fr. Carlassare said he welcomed his episcopal appointment in a "spirit of faith" even though it was not among his expectations.

"God is the God of surprises. And his surprises, even though challenging, carry always a blessing," the bishop-elect told ACI Africa March 8.

The member of the Comboni Missionaries added, "I did not expect this appointment, but I welcome it with spirit of faith and availability. May the loving plan of God for the Church of Rumbek and South Sudan be accomplished."

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During the cordial talks, the Holy Father and the Archbishop of Canterbury agreed that, if the political situation in the country should allow the establishment of a transitional government of national unity in the next 100 days, at the expiry of the agreement signed in recent days in Entebbe, in Uganda, they intend to visit South Sudan together.

The decision follows Pope Francis earlier, in a meeting with the Ecumenical Council of Churches of South Sudan, expressing his desire to visit South Sudan.

The Council is an expression of the Ecumenical Council of Churches that was founded in 1965 as the "Council of Churches of Sudan" as a means to help the marginalized areas of Sudan.

Source

• ACI Stampa

"I am asking you as a brother to stay in peace. I am asking you with my heart, let us go forward. There will be many problems but they will not overcome us. Resolve your problems," Francis said.

A video released by the Vatican shows an aide helping Francis, who is 82, to kneel so he could kiss the feet of President Salva Kiir Mayardit. He then moved on to Vice Presidents-designate Riek Machar and Rebecca Nyandeng de Mabior.

Kiir and Machar were once rivals, with Kiir accusing Machar - his former deputy - of staging a 2013 coup.

Several years of civil war followed. However, last year they signed a peace agreement and they are now trying to form a stable government together.

The South Sudanese politicians were staying at the Pope's Vatican residence for a two-day spiritual retreat, co-hosted by Francis and the head of the Anglican Church, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby. The retreat was Welby's idea.

The aim was to bring the South Sudanese leaders together for 24 hours of prayer and preaching in an attempt to heal bitter divisions before the country is due to set up a unity government.

"There will be struggles, disagreements among you but keep them within you, inside the office, so to speak," Francis said in Italian as an aide translated into English. "But in front of the people, hold hands united. So, as simple citizens, you will become fathers of the nation."

Sudan, which is predominantly Muslim, and the mainly Christian south fought for decades before South Sudan became independent in 2011.

Civil war broke out in South Sudan two years later after Mr Kiir, a Dinka, fired Mr Machar, from the Nuer ethnic group, from the vice presidency.

About 400,000 people died and more than a third of the country's 12 million people were uprooted, sparking Africa's worst refugee crisis since the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

The two sides signed a power-sharing deal in September calling on the main rival factions to assemble, screen and train their respective forces to create a national army before the formation of a unity government next month.

Source

• CNN
• Irish Times
• Image: KUTV

The "unprecedented" spiritual retreat, which finished yesterday, was described by Vatican spokesman Alessandro Gisotti as a "propitious occasion for reflection and prayer".

He says it offered "an occasion for encounter and reconciliation, in a spirit of respect and trust, to those who in this moment have the mission and the responsibility to work for a future of peace and prosperity for the South Sudanese people."

The leaders representing the South Sudanese civil authorities were the members of the Presidency of the Republic of South Sudan. They will assume positions of great national responsibility in May. They were joined by eight members of the South Sudan Council of Churches, representing South Sudan's ecclesiastical authorities.

South Sudan - the world's youngest country - has spent most of its eight years in a state of civil war. A peace deal brokered last year by the regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and the nation's Churches is fragile.

Organisers of this week's retreat say they hope it will bring the parties together and aid efforts at reconciliation.

Prior to the retreat, a spokesperson for the Archbishop of Canterbury said the joint Anglican-Catholic initiative "could be a step on a journey .. to build confidence and trust between parties and give them spiritual nourishment."

Participants at the retreat were given a Bible signed by Pope Francis, Archbishop Justin Welby and the former Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, John Chalmers.

The Bibles included the message: "Seek that which unites. Overcome that which divides".

Source

• Anglican Communion News Service
• Vatican News
• Image: Anglican Communion News Service

In announcing the awards last week, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sr Orla Treacy's work "has become a beacon of hope for girls who might otherwise be denied education and forced to enter early marriages".

Treacy received the award at the State Department in Washington, along with nine others from Bangladesh, Djibouti, Egypt, Jordan, Montenegro, Myanmar, Peru, Sri Lanka and Tanzania.

At the awards, Treacy was commended for working to empower young women and girls in South Sudan "at great personal risk and sacrifice".

She joined other Loreto Sisters in 2006 when they were starting a new mission in Sudan.

The country was besieged by civil war, inter-clan conflict, insecurity and starvation.

They found women and girls were particularly vulnerable.

Treacy and the other Loreto Sisters started a girls' boarding school with 35 students. Within the past 10 years over 1,200 students from across the country, representing more than 64 ethnic groups, have attended the school.

Today, as the head administrator of the Loreto Rumbek Mission in Maker Kuei, Treacy oversees the girls' boarding secondary school, plus a co-educational primary school and a primary health care facility for women and children.

Treacy and her sisters have also saved many young women from forced or early marriages. They are part of a diverse multinational team of religious sisters, educators, nurses and others who share a vision for improving the lives of women and girls in the community.

Another of Treacy's achievements was to help establish a medical clinic at the boarding school to feed the students, employees and their families.

She found providing food directly affected the school's attendance rates, which improved by 95 percent.

In addition, Treacy works hard to ensure the provision of 12,000 meals per week (over 700,000 per year). This involves her and other Loreto sisters working with community members willing to risk their lives to source and transport food provisions through South Sudan's conflict areas.

These efforts, coupled with a nutrition programme for malnourished infants, have dramatically improved children's health in the region.

Source

• Herald.ie
• National Catholic Reporter
• Global Sisters Report
• Image: National Catholic Reporter

A ceasefire has been declared by South Sudan officials and rebel leaders.

While Bishop Barani Hiiboro, president of the Sudan and South Sudan Catholic Bishop's Conference, welcomed the ceasefire he says:

"if it is to mean anything for the suffering people of South Sudan, then our leadership must face the task of rebuilding our broken pieces. Read more

It's an old folk tale about a couple of hungry travelers who creatively entice hesitant villagers to fill their large cooking pot with delicious soup ingredients.

After the initial refusal of the villagers to feed the hungry travelers, the two men fill their pot with stream water, light a fire under it, and then add a large stone to the water.

A curious villager asks what the men are doing. The travelers tell her they are cooking delicious stone soup, and that they would be happy to share it, except that it has not reached its full potential yet. They explain to each inquiring villager that with just a few spices and some vegetables the soup will be ready.

So, desiring to enjoy the delicious stone soup, one by one each villager is happy to give up a vegetable and a smidgen of spice.

After cooking is complete, the stone is removed, and all of the gathered villagers, along with the travelers, enjoy together a wonderful helping of stone soup.

This delightful moral tale teaches that when we share what we have with those who have little or nothing, there is indeed enough good food, and other basic necessities, to go around for everyone. And that the act of sharing has the potential to bring us together as a village and even as a global community.

But in the village of Riimenze, in South Sudan, stone soup is not a charming moral tale, it is a tragic reality!

In a very sad and compelling video posted at Sudan Relief Fund's website, Catholic Bishop Eduardo Hiiboro Kussala of the Diocese of Tombura-Yambio in South Sudan, explains that with civil war violence showing no end in sight, his greatest challenge is to somehow supply food and clean water to several thousand internally displaced persons who have very little, and in many cases, absolutely nothing.

He says, "Many children are sick, and barely have anything, sometimes nothing to eat. In an attempt to appease their children, some mothers will collect stones and put them into a pot of boiling water, in hopes that their children will be convinced that it is food that is being cooked".

Please watch Bishop Kussala's video message, and then kindly consider making a donatio.

They say the killings in South Sudan must stop. In their view South Sudanese leaders do not know how to make peace, are confused, traumatised and fear peace.

Their comments were made the same day Pope Francis designated for global prayers for peace in South Sudan and Congo. Read more

And when the Tauranga couple returned home they could not continue living their "comfortable lives" and decided to leave their house, jobs and family to return to South Sudan in April.

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United Nations (UN) officials have expressed concern about the fate of the South Sudanese people.

The mandate for the UN peacekeeping mission in the country is set to expire.

Jean-Pierre Lacroix told the UN Security Council the South Sudanese people "have simply suffered far too much for far too long and we must not take their resilience against incredible odds for granted".

Lacroix is the Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations.

South Sudan became an independent nation in 2011.

The mainly Christian and Animist population had been involved in a civil war with Muslim citizens - now mostly located in Sudan - for decades.

The civil war sprang up again in 2013, between the majority Dinka and Nuer tribes.

The net result is famine, the possibility of genocide and over three million displaced people.

While political and economic instability continue, "humanitarian needs will remain dire," Mark Lowcock says.

Lowcock is the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator.

He estimates about half South Sudan's 12.23 million population will be relying on emergency food aid by early 2018.

Although both Pope Francis and the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby had planned to visit South Sudan in October, the visit was cancelled for the meanwhile.

The deteriorating security situation was the reason their visit was cancelled.

Francis has since held a prayer service for South Sudan and Congo, which is also suffering from the effects of war.

In his homily during the prayer service, Francis said "...Prayer works by the power of God, for whom nothing is impossible".

Source

• Crux
• Upper Nile Times

Every month, the agency moves more than 25,000 tons of food in its war on hunger.

In mid-April of this year, Asu Dennis Charles Lasuba, a member of the Kakwa people, decided he had to leave. There was nothing more he could do.

Fighters rallying behind former South Sudanese vice president, Riek Machars, had spread out across Kakwa territory in the southern part of the country.

In response, soldiers belonging to the government army advanced into the area and accused Lasuba and his people of cooperating with Machar's rebels.

The soldiers began slaughtering members of the ethnic group and burning down their homes.

The violence turned 37-year-old Lasuba into yet another South Sudanese refugee.

Like 6 million of his compatriots who have become internally displaced or have otherwise suffered due to the almost four-year long conflict, Lasuba is now dependent on international aid.

After arriving in the Imvepi refugee camp just a few days after he escaped the violence, he described the fear that triggered his flight.

Like 1 million other people from South Sudan, he has found refuge in Uganda. The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) provides them with the rations necessary to survive: 2,100 calories per day.

But the amount of food that must be shipped to feed Lasuba and the other refugees in Uganda, as well as the 2 million internally displaced still in South Sudan, is enormous.

In 2016, the WFP bought more than 300,000 tons of sorghum, beans and oil for the South Sudan crisis alone.

When it comes to food purchases, there is but a single rule the WFP follows: Supplies must always be bought at the lowest price possible.

Because that sum is a combination of the purchase price and transport costs, sacks of grain sometimes travel huge distances across circuitous routes before they end up in the gigantic depot in eastern Uganda for deployment in the South Sudan crisis.

Is the price of corn currently low in Mexico? Is it cheap enough that the amount saved justifies sending it halfway around the globe? If it is, WFP will buy it. Continue reading

Sources

• Spiegel Online
• Image: Jamii Radio

Regis University in Denver presented Lacey the Opus Prize. The prize includes a cash award of one million dollars.

Lacey's organisation, called "Mercy Beyond Borders," provides educational and economic help as well as job training to over 1,400 displaced women and girls every year. Read more

Sister Yudith Pereira-Rico, associate executive director of Solidarity with South Sudan says her organization is promoting the hashtag #SouthSudanWeCare on social media.

Their aim: to show the South Sudanese people that they will not be overlooked.

"The people there feel they are forgotten. There is no media attention and they always tell us, ‘Please, don't forget to speak about us,'" Pereira-Rico says.

The people's fear that they'll be forgotten is not unfounded. Many journalists have died while working in South Sudan since the crisis began in 2013.

Then on Monday last week the South Sudanese government banned 20 foreign journalists from working in the country.

Elijah Alier, the head of the country's media authority accused the journalists of writing "unsubstantiated and unrealistic" stories that "insulted or degraded South Sudan and its people".

The government reversed this decision last Friday.

Alfred Taban, a veteran local journalist says after being told the bans are wrong and illegal, the government pledged unhindered media coverage.

"This time of national dialogue is for healing, reconciliation by all people and it cannot be possible without media support," he explained.

This will be good news to Pereira-Rico.

She says she has spent the past two decades working in the poorest parts of West Africa "and yet I've never seen the poverty like there is in South Sudan.

"My first time in South Sudan, in Malakal, I wasn't able to sing ‘Hallelujah' in church" having seen the situation of the people. "Now, more and more, I can see that God is here."

Pereira-Rico says sometimes she and her colleagues feel powerless when faced with so many people in need, "but just being there" can offer comfort, she says.

"A challenge we have as Christians is believing in the resurrection in these situations, knowing that there is a good end for human history."

• The Peninsula
• Crux
• Image: BBC

The country is suffering the effects of decades of civil war and its people are facing starvation. Read more

The Vatican confirmed that although it has been looking into the possibility of Francis and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, visiting South Sudan, it has decided it's too dangerous to visit the country at present.

The Church of England has not yet said whether Welby will visit the country on his own.

He and Francis had planned to use their trip to help raise the profile of the people living in the war-torn country and to help them find peace.

South Sudan is in a bad way, reports show.

After gaining independence in 2011, the country has suffered violent outbreaks since December 2013.

That was when fighting followed a dispute between President Kiir, who is Dinka, and former vice-president Machar, who is Nuer.

The Dinka and Nuer are South Sudan's two largest ethnic groups.

An ethnic war followed, which continues to this day. The United Nations says the South Sudanese government forces' "ethnic cleansing" is "teetering on the edge of genocide".

About 300,000 people have died and three million have been displaced.

Around half the country's 10 million people are on the brink of starvation.

Source

• International Business Times
• National Catholic Reporter
• The Tablet
• Image: CNN.com

Mass starvation faces South Sudan as the country suffers from the "scorched-earth" policies of the factions fighting a civil war in the region.

South Sudanese civilians are being targeted by both sides in the country's three-year civil war.

Food shortages are made worse by problems of unemployment as civilians are forced from their homes and land by the opposing forces.

Among the most vulnerable to starvation are more than three million refugees and people internally displaced by fighting between the supporters of President Salva Kiir and former Vice President Riek Machar.

Added to this is soaring inflation and poor rains, meaning that the country had now entered a critical time, the bishops said.

They also spoke of war crimes being committed by people on both sides of the fighting.

"The killing, torturing and raping of civilians is a war crime," they bishops said.

"People have been herded into their houses which were then set on fire."

Source

• CatholicCulture
• Catholic News Service
• Image: ICRC