JANUARY 15, 2014 BY EDWARD HOYT
The latest from CRS’ emergency response team in South Sudan:
An estimated 395,000 people are reported to have been displaced by the crisis, including 352,000 internally displaced people and close to 43,000 refugees in neighboring countries.
Around 175,000 people have been reached with some kind of assistance to date, inside and outside UN bases, including food, healthcare, vaccinations, clean water and sanitation and protection services.
Over 84,000 people have been displaced to Mingkaman and surrounding areas in Awerial County, Lakes State.
The major newly reported concentrations of displaced people are in Central and Eastern Equatoria, Jonglei and Unity states.
Some 3,000 to 4,000 people arrive daily in Uganda.
In the first couple of days of conflict in Juba CRS organized water distributions for 2,000 displaced Sudanese at the Cathedral.
The bishops of South Sudan have put out a number of messages and are conducting high-level advocacy calling for both sides to stop the violence, and in particular to stop the violence against civilians.
On January 13, CRS moved an emergency response team to Awerial County to assess and respond to water and sanitation and non-food needs in the area. A first truck was then sent with the following items for distribution:
1) Mosquito Nets 500 Pcs
2) Buckets 300 Pcs
3) Latrine Slabs 600 Pcs
4) Water bladder 2 Pcs each for 5,000 liters
5) Pick axes with handles 100 Pcs
6) Spades with handles 255 Pcs
7) Grass Slashers / Pangas 70 Pcs
8) Wheelbarrows 23 Pcs
CRS is planning to drill new wells in Awerial to cater for water needs of the IDPs.
In Awerial, CRS has access to 8 diocesan volunteers to support information dissemination. This will accompany soap distributions for 3,400 households to complement work done by Oxfam.
Stocks of sorghum, lentils and oil from the should be moved up to support emergent food needs. Additional salt and sugar will also likely need to be procured to complement the rations. The food needs could be as high as 15,000 households by the end of January. This could potentially be met by combining the CRS and World Food Programme pipelines, with CRS in charge of the actual distributions.
CRS is procuring kitchen sets, hygiene sets and shelter sets for 12,000 households to meet the assessed needs in Awerial as well as emerging needs there and elsewhere.
Assesments are planned for Juba, Nimule (Eastern Equatoria State), and possibly Renk (Upper Nile State) with the expectation of conducting market-based, or direct support in the areas of shelter, food and non-food items based on the needs and opportunities in those areas.
Partnership and Coordination
CRS South Sudan and local Caritas have a longstanding partnership. CRS plans to jointly work with Caritas South Sudan and other Caritas agencies to respond to this emergency. CRS has been asked to be the point of contact for information coming from displaced populations that have moved to church lands.
On January 9, CRS South Sudan sent an assessment team to Awerial County, Lakes state. The team conducted household surveys and one focus group discussion to identify needs.
Three organizations have launched major responses in Awerial so far — Oxfam, MSF and ICRC. The new arrival of displaced people on daily basis creates additional needs for non-food items, shelter, water, sanitation and hygiene, and food. In Awerial we identified an immediate need for support to 3,400 households for the following:
Shelter — Temporary shelter
NFIs — Kitchen and hygiene sets
WASH — Immediate needs are latrines, hygiene messaging, and clean water supply.
Hygiene — Public hygiene promotion is critical, both to reduce the number of cases of open defecation and diseases.
Food — Food does not appear to be the immediate priority at the moment, but it will be within the next two weeks once the current ICRC distribution runs out.