South Sudan update from Country Director Tiffany Easthom
Press Clip Source: Nonviolent Peaceforce Press Release
Written By: Country Director Tiffany Easthom
Date: January 10, 2014
Read Original Article: Here
South Sudan Update
Over the holiday season you have probably received many urgent appeals from organizations doing critical work. No matter how important, we can become desensitized to such words and fatigued by the appeals.
Yet, as I write this letter late at night from my tent in a camp for 20,000 internally displaced people in South Sudan I am at a loss as to what other words to use other than URGENT and CRITICAL. We need your URGENT and CRITICAL donations to protect civilians as the country grapples with the impact of civil war.
You, no doubt, are hearing with increasing intensity about the assault on so many civilians in South Sudan. I can say from my own observation, the number of people affected increases by the hour as they run for their lives.
Oddly, I experience a mix of frustration, fear, hope and determination. During the past four years, Nonviolent Peaceforce has placed the largest number of our peacekeepers in this country to keep peace and deter violence, working to support amazing communities in their struggle for a peaceful future. But now, a few political rivals - competing for power and money - have been able to exploit age-old divisions and bring the country back into the destruction of civil war.
WE CANNOT LET GO NOW.
Some of the team and I are currently working out of in an internally displaced persons camp in the UN base in Juba where thousands of threatened people have sought refuge and the number grows everyday. We are providing around the clock support, conducting nighttime patrols, providing protection and responding to emergencies. We are protecting children and helping reunite them with their families.
Nonviolent Peaceforce is also working with the remaining UN agencies and nongovernmental organizations still in the country to implement a comprehensive humanitarian response. On New Year’s Day I traveled to the village of Minkoman, Lakes State as a member of an Integrated Rapid Needs Assessment team. This team was organized by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs to conduct the protection component of the assessment. In the coming days we are deploying emergency protection teams to Lakes State and to Unity State where collectively 120,000 people have fled the fighting. Our teams in the north, near the Sudan/South Sudan border have resumed operations as the migration season is upon us and a stable, peaceful migration has never been so important.
Many of you have brought Nonviolent Peaceforce to where we are today. WE NEED YOU NOW MORE THAN EVER! Please donate now to help keep us in South Sudan so we can increase our number of peacekeepers.
We are committed to staying and working with our brave partners on the ground to build peace over the long haul. I know that we are going in the right direction in protecting civilians and supporting those who do not want this war, who are seeking peaceful resolutions. Despite horrible set backs, we share an inevitable journey towards a nonviolent future. Thank you for helping to bring this dream to reality.
Sincerely,
Tiffany Easthom
Country Director
South Sudan
P.S. Please see my interview on the CBC on Jan. 4.