Methodist Church Will Send Aid Workers To Darfur
The United Methodist Committee on Relief is upping its involvement in the Sudanese crisis by adding direct personnel aid to its current solutions of advocacy and financial aid.
By January 2005, UMCOR will send a team of humanitarian workers to the displaced people suffering in Darfur. The United Methodist Committee on Relief is upping its involvement in the Sudanese crisis by adding direct personnel aid to its current solutions of advocacy and financial aid.
An investigative team, which was dispatched by UMCOR, recently returned from their trip to Sudan. The three-member team spent three weeks in Darfur and found a great need for basic relief efforts, such as preventing famine and returning the people to their homes, reports UMNS.
Over 70,000 people have been killed and 1.6 million displaced from their homes as a result of ethnic conflict over land between the pastoral Arabs in the north and the agricultural Africans in the south and west, said Jen Poitras of the UMCOR assessment team.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
Although there are roughly 70 humanitarian organizations registered in Sudan right now, virtually none of them are in southern Darfur. Jim Cox said, “At first we said that that’s a lot, however, when you deal with 1.6 million people displaced,” the number is misleading. “It’s not about number of agencies, it’s about access to funding.”
Most of the humanitarian agencies are assisting the camps in Chad. Cox pointed out that internally displaced persons are not considered refugees by the U.N. and are not eligible for benefits, which has generated many problems.
UMC will therefore begin work in the camps of the south. These camps range from a few thousand to over 25,000 people, and UMC will target those that are “most vulnerable” says Jim Cox. The initial phase will be camp management and distribution of essential emergency nonfood items, such as tents, blankets, buckets, plastic sheeting, cooking utensils and soap.
UMCOR has shifted from giving financial aid to operational aid, said Jim Cox. UMCOR began by providing financial support to Darfur through the Action for Churches Together (ACT) network, but is now planning to send 5 aid workers to the southern Darfur camps in addition to hiring 15-20 local Sudanese.
It was largely the result of international pressure that the Sudanese government has opened to allow humanitarian organizations, and UMCOR has become one of the registered providers of direct services to the refugees.
Poitras explained that Sudan is the size of Texas and has three regions, north, south, and west. It is the west that is currently most heavily attacked. The survivors have fled into the southern region and neighboring Chad and live in camps, where they are still attacked.
The 20-year conflict in the south has spread into the western region after rebel groups saw the gains realized by the south. The Sudanese government thereafter supported the Janjaweed militia, who are responsible for the massive killings and displacement of people.
Most of the refugees in South Darfur have little food or shelter and no way to cook but seem more afraid of attack, Jen Poitras said (UMNS).
Along with political violence, Darfur is facing the likelihood of famine in the near future, she said. The agricultural system has broken down, she said. Seed, poultry, farm animals and equipment have been lost.
Jim Cox said that a two-track approach could mitigate the impending famine. One is to keep the food going, and another is to work on agricultural development projects, particularly as they are resettled, he said in an interview with Christian Post.
UMCOR has been focusing on advocacy work to increase international awareness of the conflict. When asked if the situation in Darfur has improved at all, Jim Cox, executive director of UMCOR and responsible for dispatching the assessment team said, “Yes, because if you looked back four or five months ago, we couldn’t even have access. At least there has been enough pressure at the government to open up so that we can take a look around.” He calls this “a small but important step.”
The Methodist Church, an 11 million-member denomination with 61 Methodists in Congress this year, will continue to solicit addition funds from local congregations and from governmental and international donors.
The Rev. Randy R. Day, chief executive of the Board of Global Ministries, which oversees UMCOR told UMNS, "We must become even more active in providing assistance and in advocating for international action to stop the violence. We must continue and increase both humanitarian and diplomatic efforts."
He urged "the United Nations, the African Union, the European Union and the United States to intensify efforts aimed at persuading Khartoum to end the violence and prepare for the return of the refugees."
Cox agrees saying, although the current administration has done its best with political pressure, they are constrained by the peace agreement in the South, which they’ve been working decades, “but we need to continue advocacy.”
