A year on since the latest conflict in Sudan began, UN officials have described the situation as having created “the world’s largest displacement crisis”, with nearly nine million people fleeing their homes. Over half the population – 25 million people – require humanitarian assistance, and famine and outbreaks of disease risk an even worse situation.
As so often is the case, women and girls are bearing the brunt of the conflict, with sexual and gender-based violence being perpetrated by all parties to the conflict and widespread across the country. A recent UN report describes how women and girls are being subjected to sexual violence, including rape, gang rape, and trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation and forced prostitution, including being abducted and held in inhuman conditions. The same report details the death of a victim of gang rape by the Rapid Support Forces as a result of injuries suffered and lack of access to medical care.
Grace Dorong, a South Sudanese woman, who has four children and in 2016 founded a grassroots organisation called Root of Generations in South Sudan. It’s a women-led organisation striving to create a world where women and girls are protected, cared for and able to realise their full potential. They implement support to improve women’s economic independence (e.g. entrepreneurship training and capital help), and preventing violence against women through change in behaviours, practices and attitudes etc.
Grace was displaced as a child in South Sudan’s war and ended up in a refugee camp in Kenya as an unaccompanied minor (aged around 5-7). When she returned to SS years later she had qualified for a scholarship to become a pilot but was denied the chance to fulfill her dreams and told directly that this is because she is a woman. Grace is determined to use her history and experiences (of being displaced, seeing first-hand the harsh realities of women living with violence and being denied opportunities due to her gender) to support and inspire young women in her country.
Grace and her team are helping to support these affected refugees in Internally Displaced Camps (IDPs) in Gumbo Shirkat (Juba City) – providing them with trauma-healing activities, psycho-social support, cash transfers and training for economic empowerment to help them get on their feet again.
- Could you describe to us the situation currently?
“The situation [with Sudanese refugees entering South Sudan] is bad especially on the protection and food aspect. The food insecurity and lack of transportation to various centres from entry points exposes them (the refugees) to bad conditions. We have been implementing a Making Displacement Safer project in internally-displaced persons (IDP) camps, targeting women, children and single-headed households. We support them with protection and empowerment opportunities. We look deeper into the lost-and-damage experiences by these women from Sudan; their emotional and mental needs like dealing with stigma, loss of self-esteem, loss of loved ones, loss of identity, loss of connection to one’s origin, ancestors and many others.”
“A lot of things that I am seeing, when this conflict is happening, people are running away but the kids are young. One woman, I met her in a reception site near the border where they are receiving the returnees. She told me that her children were so young, she could not run, she could not carry them together. She had to sit there until the fighting got to where she was and she lost her children accept the little one on her arms. That is the pain the women are facing when trying to protect their children, but the women often cannot run. Her husband had run out of the house and she was left holding her children.”
“The desperation the women are facing is beyond. Looking at her now, with the little one in her arms and the rest are not there, what do you think this woman’s life is like? She even said she cannot see why she is here, she said her life is meaningless without her children.”
- What would you like to say to decision makers?
“One key message I would like to say to policy and decision makers is that the interests of the leaders that they have is not equivalent to the lives of the people that we are losing through these wars. The life lost is extremely big. They should have a reflection, see the women and children in the mirrors when they look at themselves and try to have an understanding of focusing on the lives of the people other than the self-interests that they have.They can have the power, but give us the peace and the security in our homes and our environments. That is all the people ask for.”
- It has been reported that Sudanese refugees have been settling in IDP camps across South Sudan. What are you seeing in these settlements in Juba City?
“Food is another desperate need. In the reception centres and the settlements, food is the number one thing. These are people who have become displaced, they have run away from the conflict and have had many days without food, arriving tired and exhausted. They need medical support, food and shelter to be able to rest. Besides this, security is another need. You can have a shelter but when you are not safe, you are not going to enjoy being in that shelter. Security at the camps and the reception centres is important too, it is becoming a necessity at this point.”
“We are not in the border camps, we are operating in the settlements here in Juba. We go to the border point to access the situation and see what is happening so that we can respond. So we are offering psycho- social support services to those arriving in Juba. We do GBV (gender-based violence) responding and prevention, cash transfer in terms of empowering the households and training them on entrepreneurship. This is for people who are settled in these camps and want something to keep them going. We can’t meet all their needs but something to help them sustain their lives for a while we are finding is best.”
“In Juba, there are camps in Mongalla, Gumbo Shirkat, Konyo Konyo, but there are other new camps set up specifically for Sudanese and South Sudanese people fleeing the conflict. South Sudanese fleeing the conflict live with relatives within Juba, creating congestion coupled with economic hardship due to hiking prices of goods and services.”
“The rainy season is starting soon and I imagine women outside their homes, in the bush with their children…women delivery under the tree, the umbilical cord cut with the broken stone!”
- Could you tell us a bit about your story and what drives you to do what you do?
“Being displaced as a child has led me to where I am today. I was between 5 or 7 years old when I was displaced to Kenya. That was the time I got baptised, someone looked at me and estimated my age. I can see from my children now that I must have been between 5 to 7. I didn’t move with any family, I was brought up as a minor. I remember the grip of my mum leaving my hand that dreadful night and that was it.”
“As a child being driven out of your home and ending up in a different location, that has a lot of impact in a child’s life. I use my history to try to change the world and make it a better place. This is something that is driving me, that is where I find my energy.”
With displacement and needs on the rise, more urgent humanitarian support is needed in all areas. This includes registration and transport to reception centres, provision of life-saving assistance, food, temporary housing and physical and psycho-social protection.
The Circle NGO, along with leading creatives and our grassroot-funded partners including Root of Generations are calling on the UK government – and other key states – to put meaningful pressure on the warring parties, and the states that are sponsoring them – to stop the war. Violations of arms embargoes should have immediate consequences and sanctions should be applied against key individuals on both sides.
READ THE OPEN LETTER HERE
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