Time Is Up! We Must Stand by the People of South Sudan

As I write, multiple, growing crises are inflicting havoc on millions of innocent lives.

Lives – of people like the rest of us, who have jobs, families, children – are being forever changed by conflicts in Yemen, Syria, Lake Chad Basin, Iraq, and elsewhere.

Inaction has fuelled the largest displacement crisis since records began: over sixty-five million people have been forced to flee their homes because of conflict, violence or persecution.

Crises compete for attention from governments to protect people – for resolutions that stop violence, and for life-saving support. These are the kind of decisions that result in life and death. No people should be forgotten.

There is one catastrophic crisis unfolding in East Africa, close to home for me, which the world’s governments for the most part seem to have decided to ignore for now: the spiralling conflict in South Sudan.

For the past three years this country, the world’s youngest, has been ravaged by fighting.

Peace treaties have been signed and broken; thousands of lives have been lost, and too little has been done by the international community to protect the lives of the ordinary people. They continue to pay the price for a political power struggle.

Humanitarian needs are shocking

Now in South Sudan nearly 5 million people are desperately hungry.

Half the population is already in need of humanitarian aid and more than one million people, the overwhelming majority of whom are women and children, have fled into neighboring countries, mostly in Uganda, Ethiopia and Sudan.

Alarmingly the number of South Sudanese who have fled to other countries in East Africa over the last three years is almost on par with the number of refugees registered at the height of arrivals in Europe last year.

Equally alarming is the fact that the $759 million UN humanitarian response for this regional crisis is only 28% funded.

This is not just South Sudan’s crisis; it’s an international one

The UN is calling for swift action after their Commission for Human Rights warned that the country is “on the brink” of genocide.

This crisis must not be ignored just simply because it is far from Europe’s shores.

The number of people crossing South Sudan’s borders continues to rise, with as many as 4,000 South Sudanese currently fleeing into neighboring countries daily. This increasing number is a stark indicator that the crisis is worsening and it will soon engulf the entire region if action is not swiftly taken.

In this crisis, children make up two thirds of refugees. They must be able to get an education and skills that can enable them to make a living in the future.

How many generations of young people have to grow up in refugee camps before we realise that peace is a non-negotiable prerequisite for any economic growth or development of a nation?

An urgent plea for peace

Decision-makers must urgently muster the courage to shift course for the people of South Sudan.

We must be ready to cope with large influxes of refugees across multiple countries whilst acting to end this conflict. We should be ready now, because it is already happening.

Crucially, the violence and attacks on civilians in South Sudan must be stopped. The UN has found that seventy per cent of women in the capital city, Juba, have been raped in the last three years.

Over one million refugees

The international community – led by the African Union, and governments and institutions in East Africa must put all their efforts into putting an end to the violence and the conflict.

Current diplomatic efforts must step up.

South Sudan’s neighbors have a critical role to play as peace brokers; they need to work with all parties to the conflict to find a peaceful solution. They are absorbing South Sudanese refugees, and they hold the keys to influencing South Sudan’s leaders.

They must also ensure that borders are kept open - so that people can flee the fighting and violence. And with the crisis now in “fire-fighting mode” – over 1 million people are now refugees. It is critical that host countries have the resources to support people forced to flee.

South Sudan’s neighbors, like developing nations around the world which host 86% of the world’s refugees, have long known their duty to protect people forced to flee.

My own country, Uganda is hosting over half-a-million South Sudanese refugees and asylum seekers. As any country should do, refugees are guaranteed rights to work, establish businesses, attend school, freely move and own property; land, too, is given for agricultural use. But as the influx of refugees increases, and the resources are lacking, the generosity of host communities is already overstretched.

Take Bidi Bidi – a small village in the north of Uganda not far from the South Sudan border, one of many areas in which people from South Sudan are finding sanctuary. Within the last six months, since the last bout of fighting shook Juba, Bidi Bidi has become the second largest refugee resettlement area in the world.

Oxfam is working with its partners to provide emergency water, food and sanitation for South Sudanese refugees in Uganda and Ethiopia; in Uganda we are also working with refugees and host communities to protect children and women from violence. Together with other agencies we are just about keeping up with the pace of new arrivals. There is so much more that needs to be done.

The world cannot afford to avert its gaze from the horrors unfolding in South Sudan any longer.

Violence is not inevitable

Governments – particularly those in our continent – have the ability to end this suffering.

They must act, without further delay.

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A version of this post was originally published in Daily Nation, Kenya.

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Photo credit: Mackenzie Knowles Coursin/Oxfam