Rapid Response Payment Request No. 3/2009
Funds Sent To: Norwegian Church Aid
Amount Sent: US$ 49,013.64
Date: 12 February 2009
Details of Response
Emergency: Displacement in Southern Sudan Caused by LRA Attacks
Date of Emergency: 11 February 2009
Implementing Member(s): Norwegian Church Aid/ ECS/SUDRA
DETAILS OF THE EMERGENCY
Since mid-December 2008 a series of brutal attacks by the Ugandan rebel Lords Resistance Army (LRA) has hit the border areas either side of the DRC/Sudan border. To date 23,569 people (OCHA, 28 Jan) have been displaced within Central and Western Equatoria states of Southern Sudan. 120 people have been killed and 60 have been abducted by this rebel group, whose ambitions are still not clear. The nature of the attacks has been particularly vicious, involving beatings, and burnings.
Over 7,000 refugees have crossed the border from DRC into Sudan seeking safety. Many of those displaced inside Sudan are women, children and elderly people - the younger men have in many cases remained in or near the villages in an attempt to protect their houses and crops, which are almost ready to be harvested, from the attackers. People are scared and disoriented and unsure when they will be able to return home.
ACTIONS TO DATE AND EMERGENCY NEEDS
Information has been emerging slowly from the area, mainly from the Bishops of the ECS Dioceses of Ezo, Yambio, Ibba and Mundri. On 20th January the Governor of Western Equatoria State issued an appeal for international assistance, stating that the needs were beyond what the local authorities were able to meet.
Rapid assessments have been undertaken by inter-agency groups, lead by UNOCHA, as follows:
• Maridi and Yambio Counties, WES: 14-17 January
• Lainya and Yei, Central Equatoria: 14-16 January
• Mundri West, Mundri East, WES: 22-26 January (attached)
In addition, the ECS relief & development wing, SUDRA, carried out its own assessment in Mundri, Lui (Mundri East) and Maridi on 24th January and issued a report with photographs.
NB: No specific ACT Forum assessment has taken place since issuing the Alert on 23rd January due to the availability of good information from the above reports.
All the emergency assessments paint a very similar story, and report similar numbers of people affected (the SSRRC, the Government relief commission, has been registering the affected people in each location and provided numbers to all the assessment teams which will be re-verified before distributions are done). The main needs are for food, shelter, cooking utensils, hygiene/sanitation facilities, and water provision (in some areas). Security is clearly also a primary concern. The displaced are living with relatives or people who have just taken them in, no camps are set up and the authorities have requested that the aid be given to the people where they are so as not to provide any incentive for them to stay away from their farms any longer than necessary at this important time of the agricultural season.
The international agencies, under the coordination of OCHA and UNHCR, have mobilised to verify the numbers of displaced and send food (WFP). UNICEF, IOM, ICRC and others are providing non-food item kits (details of the contents are awaited) and UNICEF is working with its partners to address water and sanitation needs. However there are likely to be gaps in the provision of this emergency aid because the figures being used for distribution planning now are those from the SSRRC 1-2 weeks ago and it is reported that the numbers are still rising as more people find their way into the larger towns from the very remote areas in which they live and were attacked.
PROPOSED EMERGENCY RESPONSE:
Objectives
• To meet the basic shelter and non-food item needs of IDPs in Lui Diocese, Mundri county, Western Equatoria state.
Target Populations
• 400 households (approximately 2,000 people) in Wittoh, Lui Diocese (Mundri county) - age/sex breakdown not available.
Planned Activities: (for table, kindly go to the ACT site. Thank you.)
Implementation Arrangements
Implementing Partners
Norwegian Church Aid will hold the budget and reporting responsibility for this response, working with the ECS Provincial Office in Juba. The ECS Province's relief department, SUDRA, will manage the budget internally and oversee all of the project activities.
NCA will provide a Project Officer to work alongside ECS/SUDRA to ensure that procurement, transportation, storage, distribution reporting are carried out in an accountable way and to build the capacity of ECS/SUDRA to do this on its own in future.
Procurement and transport to Mundri county will be done by NCA. Thereafter the ECS Dioceses of Mundri and Lui will carry out the distribution in Wittoh (or other area designated by the coordination group in Mundri), with supervision and support from SUDRA's programme manager, Rev Simon Peter and the NCA Project Officer assigned.
Coordination
Coordination between the ACT Juba Forum Disaster Management Committee (DMC) members has taken place already and will continue to take place throughout the period of this project, mainly by email but also meetings as required.
Coordination with other relief agencies will be carried out at Juba level by DCA as chair of the DMC, or NCA, since CA does not have a permanent presence in Juba at the moment.
Coordination at the field level will be done by the Dioceses and the NCA project officer. Christian Aid's partner the Mundri Relief and Development Agency (MRDA), who are also responding with non-ACT resources to the crisis, has confirmed that they will ensure that ECS is included in the local-level coordination for a (MRDA works closely with the ECS Dioceses in Mundri already). Oxfam GB is the lead agency for NFI distributions in Mundri and they are aware of the ACT members plans.
Information about the ACT members response, and that of the ECS churches as far as it is known, will be fed into the OCHA response matrix by DCA.
Communications
No ACT communications officer is in the area, however the BBC has sent two sets of journalists to cover the crisis in Western Equatoria. The latest of these visits, due to start 31st January, was instigated by ECS with the support of Christian Aid in London.
The Northern Uganda Advocacy Partnership for Peace (NUAPP) which is a consortium of British NGOs working on LRA issues in the DRC, Uganda and Sudan, is meeting with the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office on 9th February in London.
The NUAPP representatives will ask for additional FCO effort and attention to be paid to the crisis; for the FCO to ensure that the three governments involved ensure protection of civilians; and that humanitarian aid be allowed to reach those affected (NB these messages may be refined/expanded before the 9th Feb meeting). The Episcopal/Anglican Church in the UK is also raising awareness through its global channels.
Planned Implementation Period: One month from the date funding is received.
BUDGET: US$ 49,013.64 (for the detaild budget, kindly visit the ACT site. Thank you.)
ACTION
The ACT Co-ordinating Office has approved the use of USD 49,013.64 towards the budget from its Rapid Response Fund and would be grateful to receive contributions to wholly or partially replenish this payment.
(ends)
ACT is a global alliance of churches and related agencies working to save lives and support communities in emergencies worldwide.
The ACT Coordinating Office is based with the World Council of Churches (WCC) and The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) in Switzerland.
[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]
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