Southern Sudan’s capital, Juba, was bedecked with flags and bougainvillea February 27 to March 3 to celebrate the first anniversary of the peace declaration that ended seventeen years of devastating civil war (see May 12, 1972 issue, page 38).
At the newly tarred airport in 105° heat, Sudan president Gafaar Mohammed Nimeri, a Northern Muslim, was welcomed by the nation’s vice-president, Sayed Abel Alier, a Southern Christian, who also is president of the Higher Executive Council of the Southern Region. The presidential motorcade proceeded through town on the city’s only tarred road—hurriedly surfaced for the celebrations—past armored cars and tanks.
In the Anglican cathedral, where thirty men were shot during the Juba massacre in July, 1965, prayers of thanksgiving were given for the peace that has come to the South’s four million people. (Five services are now held each Sunday morning in the cathedral.) “God has done a miracle,” remarked member Mading de Garang, minister of information. During the war he edited the Southern Sudan Liberation Movement’s paper, The Grass Curtain.
Approximately half a million persons died in the guerrilla fighting, and more than 250,000 refugees fled to Ethiopia, Uganda, Zaire, and the Central African Republic. Another half million who remained in Sudan became homeless when soldiers of both sides razed entire villages.
The Sudan’s resettlement commissioner, Sayed Clement Mboro, fears “a crisis in food and medical supplies” this month. To ease the problems, Sudanese ambassadors in Zaire and Uganda have asked those governments to extend their deadline for repatriation of all refugees by June 30. Transport problems alone would make that date impossible, they say.
One of several agencies helping the Sudan government in the complex task is the Africa Committee for the Rehabilitation of Southern Sudan (ACROSS). ACROSS was set up as a coordinating office for the relief work of several evangelical missions that worked in Sudan before the civil war: Missionary Aviation Fellowship, African Inland Mission, Sudan United Mission, and Sudan Interior Mission. It has received enthusiastic government endorsement. Several evangelical agencies are helping with support, including The Evangelical Alliance Relief (TEAR) Fund of Great Britain, the World Relief Commission of the (U. S.) National Association of Evangelicals, World Vision, and the German Missionary Fellowship.
“We are establishing a bridge,” explained ACROSS director Kenneth Tracey at operations headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya. “Evangelical Christians around the world are demonstrating their concern for people who have lost everything, and the resultant spiritual potential is unlimited. These are short-term projects with long-range goals.” He said there is immediate need not only for money but also for medical staff for the three hospitals that the government has asked ACROSS to reopen.
In Juba, ACROSS official Ashley Tuck said the first of ten proposed rural clinics is already in operation, and supplies are being moved in for another four. The political situation in Uganda, however, is slowing down the flow of supplies, which must come in from Mombassa Port, a tortuous thousand miles. Bandits along the route add to the uncertainty of arrival. Tuck says he’s worried about the lag in funds because only two months remain to get cement and lumber into the swampy Sud area before the rains start.
The government has shown enthusiasm for two ACROSS projects that missions used successfully after the Nigerian civil war. Under Operation Dorcas, tailors are trained and helped to set up their own shops. They earn their sewing machines by making garments for refugees. Operation Tool and Seed does the same for blacksmiths, who make hoes for the thousands of farmers returning to their land.
Both these projects do more than provide immediate relief: they help to rehabilitate the economy. The Canadian government has contributed money for cloth and iron but requires that funds be matched from other sources.
Students who fled the country during the hostilities to continue studies in neighboring countries are beginning to return—about 2,000 out of a total of 11,000 so far. A spokesman expressed the need for a youth training program to reintegrate these students into society.
Although peace is precarious (the vice-president’s chauffeur committed suicide last month after a coup plot was uncovered), the National Unity Day celebrations showed that Sudan is trying very hard to make the North-South detente work, and that sincere assistance is warmly appreciated.
“We are grateful for what ACROSS is doing,” vice-president Alier told me at Juba airport. “This is the kind of help we need.”
