News from Fred in Kampala

Last week Fred Taban was in Kampala taking a break, something he desperately needed having invited 72 people (refugees) to live in his small house in Arua, which is very tiring as I am sure you can imagine. This time away from his home was to rest and so he might continue his study. I am trying to get him to look after himself during this ever increasing difficult time. This is what he wrote on 18 February.

It is only very sad to say that I came to a country and people far worse off than when I left some two and half years ago. My home area of Kajo-Keji which had remained an ‘island of peace’ in South Sudan is no more. 98% of the inhabitants have fled across the border into the refugee camps in Uganda. All the villages are deserted and very frightening. This mass exodus has been caused by the government soldiers who go on rampage indiscriminately killing, raping, looting and torturing any person they come across. As I write this now the situation is just worsening by the day. Nobody is safe is in South Sudan.

In the camps the sight is of absolute misery. There is no shelter, water is very scarce, food distribution is very minimal and irregular meaning people are starving en-mass. People need food, clothes, medicines, mosquito nets. You see pain, desperation and hopelessness in people’s faces. We are a people in real pain. We need prayers and the help of the international community to save us from all the atrocities meted out on the people by the same government that is meant to protect them, where and to whom have these people to go?

Things are very difficult with me and my family but I thank God that I suffer together with my people.

Following receipt of the above Fred sent me a further message:

I have been searching for good quality, reasonably cost effective and insecticide treated mosquito nets to buy for some of the refugee children and pregnant mothers. It is painful to see such vulnerable children sleep in the open with no protection against the malaria carrying mosquitoes. If you could please transfer me £700.00 from the Christmas Fund to enable me purchase and transport about 500 nets. If we succeed in this then about 1000 will be able to sleep under mosquito nets. In our context children sleep in groups of two or three so a single net protects more than one child.

I have of course sent the £700 requested so Fred might buy mosquito nets for 1000 people. A small amount of money that can help so many!

Please join us in our prayers for the people of South Sudan who need them more than ever.

Caroline Lamb
Found and CEO