{"id":22701,"date":"2017-05-16T08:02:00","date_gmt":"2017-05-16T08:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.acnmalta.org\/?p=22701"},"modified":"2017-05-16T12:18:50","modified_gmt":"2017-05-16T12:18:50","slug":"south-sudan-church-functioning-institution-acn-malta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2017\/05\/16\/south-sudan-church-functioning-institution-acn-malta\/","title":{"rendered":"SOUTH SUDAN &#8211; &#8220;The Church is the only functioning institution&#8221; &#8211; ACN Malta"},"content":{"rendered":"<style type=\"text\/css\"><\/style><h2><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>SOUTH SUDAN &#8211; <\/strong><\/span><strong><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cThe Church is the only functioning institution\u201d<\/span> <\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">A United Nations report released In March said South Sudan is experiencing ethnic cleansing by mostly government forces and described the country as teetering on the edge of genocide. Nothing has changed since then and the situation continues to deteriorate as the country descends into chaos.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">UK International Development Secretary Priti Patel agrees that the situation in South Sudan is now genocide that is being perpetrated along tribal lines. Following her visit to South Sudan, she stated that there is a &#8220;scorched earth policy,&#8221; with villages being burned down, women being raped, and food being used as a weapon of war. Ms Patel spoke of &#8220;massacres taking place, people&#8217;s throats being slit&#8221; and described the situation in South Sudan as &#8220;absolutely abhorrent and inhumane.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Because of the conflict and the \u201cscorched earth\u201d policies of government troops, food production is restricted said Neil Corkery, president of the\u00a0Sudan Relief Fund.\u00a0 In the Diocese of Tombura-Yambio, in the south western portion of the country which is a very fertile area and was once a bread basket for the country, people are now in hiding, or taking refuge in the parish compound, and unable to plant crops. \u201cThings are obviously just getting much worse. It is a real crisis that\u2019s coming,\u201d Corkery warned.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Amid war and famine in South Sudan, the Catholic Church continues to serve the most vulnerable even as the government has collapsed. The Church is the \u201conly functioning institution in civil society,\u201d said Neil Corkery, president of the\u00a0Sudan Relief Fund, and \u201cis really the only thing that\u2019s left trying to help people\u201d who live \u201cin the remotest parts of the country.\u201d United Nations humanitarian workers now only operate in \u201ccertain pockets\u201d of the country. Amid this crisis and growing famine, Catholic priests, nuns, and missionaries have been laboring to bring food and supplies to remote areas and are \u201creaching these people who are truly destitute and starving.\u201d It is not an easy task. Aside from the ongoing conflict where soldiers seize food and supplies that being transported, the country\u2019s logistical infrastructure is so poor there are no paved roads outside the capital city of Juba. During the country\u2019s rainy season, the roads are almost impassable.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">These brave missionaries are risking their lives to help the people. Several aid workers with Samaritan&#8217;s Purse were detained or kidnapped by opposition fighters near Mayendit on 13 March and are still missing. \u201cThe real heroes that I see there,\u201d Corkery said are the \u201cmissionaries toiling away on the front lines. These people are looking at the long-term solution in terms of the eternal scheme of things, people\u2019s souls.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Yet the South Sudan government is now making things even harder for them; last month it announced plans to charge $10,000 per visa for foreign aid workers. \u201cThe government and the army have largely contributed to the humanitarian situation. And now, they want to create profit from the crisis they have created,&#8221; Elizabeth Deng, South Sudan researcher with Amnesty International, said in reaction to the announcement.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">South Sudan\u2019s bishops have spoken out against the violence accusing soldiers of committing war crimes and saying that the fighting has interrupted the harvesting of crops. \u201cDespite our calls to all parties, factions, and individuals to STOP THE WAR, nevertheless killing, raping, looting, displacement, attacks on churches and destruction of property continue all across the country,\u201d the bishops of South Sudan stated in their February pastoral message.\u00a0\u201cMuch of the violence,\u201d they added, \u201cis being perpetrated by government and opposition forces against civilians,\u201d especially those of ethnicities deemed to be in alliance with rebel factions and those victims \u201care prevented from harvesting their crops.\u201d \u00a0Some members of the government have frustrated local peace deals brokered by the Church, the bishops said, and churches, priests, and nuns have been attacked.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Despite the heroic efforts of missionaries and Christian aid groups like <em>Aid to the Church In Need<\/em>, the Sudan Relief Fund \u00a0and Samaritan\u2019s Purse, establishing long-term peace is the only lasting solution to the country\u2019s problems. Prayer is the most important thing we can do to help the situation says Corkery, as peace can only come about through \u201cprayer and grace working in the hearts and the minds of these warring tribes and factions.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Please pray for the people of South Sudan and the missionaries and aid workers who risk everything to help them.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<h5><em><strong><span style=\"color: #000000;\">ACN Malta<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SOUTH SUDAN &#8211; \u201cThe Church is the only functioning institution\u201d &nbsp; A United Nations report released In March said South Sudan is experiencing ethnic cleansing by mostly government forces and described the country as teetering on the edge of genocide. Nothing has changed since then and the situation continues to deteriorate as the country descends&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22703,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-e-newsletters"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>SOUTH SUDAN - &quot;The Church is the only functioning institution&quot; - ACN Malta - Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2017\/05\/16\/south-sudan-church-functioning-institution-acn-malta\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"SOUTH SUDAN - &quot;The Church is the only functioning institution&quot; - ACN Malta - Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"SOUTH SUDAN &#8211; \u201cThe Church is the only functioning institution\u201d &nbsp; A United Nations report released In March said South Sudan is experiencing ethnic cleansing by mostly government forces and described the country as teetering on the edge of genocide. 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