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News : Emergencies

Hope – churches respond to Asia disasters

Hope – churches respond to Asia disasters – 16 Oct 2009

The images of stranded families and flood-stricken streets in the Philippines shown on BBC were terrible, but as I watched this scene I was filled with great hope. Local volunteers from churches were handing out emergency food and water and a tired looking pastor smiled as he said ‘we are showing compassion like Jesus did.’ Jesus says to us to have peace, as the Father sent Him, he also sends us (John 20:21). This is the church in action.

Muh Nasir grabbed his daughter and ran as the first earthquake tremors hit his house in Indonesia.

As the first tremors shuddered the building, the father-of-five quickly gathered up his four-year-old daughter Ifah and took her into the garden. Panic-stricken, he realised another daughter, eight year-old Mia, was missing and screamed for her to get out of the house.

Flattened image

Just as she emerged into the safety of the outdoors, the property collapsed: ‘Everything happened so fast and suddenly,’ recalls Muh Nasir. Thankfully his wife and other children, who were elsewhere in the village of Cubadak Palak, were also safe. But ten others in the area didn’t survive as some 970 homes were flattened. While Muh Nasir and his family escaped with their lives, the quality of those lives has been shattered. I have to earn money over the next 20 years to build my house from the beginning and it will be hard for me especially in this economic crisis.’

Food Aid

Tearfund partner Kotib is helping keep the family going, providing material help and encouragement. ‘Thanks to Kotib, we’ve got 10 kilos of rice, 40 packs of noodles and 24 litres of mineral water, so at least we can still eat and drink for the next few days,’ says Muh Nasir. But the family still needs new clothes, blankets and mattresses and they are not alone. Across West Sumatra, more than 1,000 died and about 100,000 homes were destroyed, with another 100,000 damaged. Tearfund is supporting Kotib as it provides emergency aid and runs food kitchens and first aid centres in villages outside Padang.

You can help support our continuing relief efforts by giving to our Emergency Fund .

Asia Disaster Response

Asia Disaster Response – 7 Oct 2009

Millions of people across South East Asia are struggling to cope after a series of natural disasters struck the region. The Indonesian island of Sumatra has been hit by a major earthquake killing at least 1,100 people. The Philippines is reeling after a typhoon caused massive flooding that has made more than a million people homeless and claimed hundreds of lives. Tearfund is working with partners and local churches to respond to the disasters.

It has been a week of horrific disasters in South East Asia and our resources are being stretched to the limit. We are calling Christians and churches to prayer for all the people facing loss and trauma following these calamitous events.

A few days ago in the South Pacific, Samoa and Tonga were flattened by a tsunami triggered from an earthquake measuring 8.9 on the Richter scale, which has left some 130 people dead. The following day, another earthquake hit the Indonesian city of Padang on Sumatra’s west coast. More than a thousand people have been killed and, with rescuers searching the rubble for thousands still missing, the death toll is likely to be far greater. Aftershocks and the fear of tsunamis is compounding the trauma as the region vividly recalls the disaster of December 2004. See BBC video footage here

A week before Typhoon Ketsana ripped though Luzon, the northern island of The Philippines, leaving – in Metro Manila alone – well over a million people in need of rescue, relief or support. News and film reports showed people wading waist deep through even the main highways that connect the sprawling cities. Other images showed furniture suspended in overhead cables. The poorest people in the slum areas have been acutely hit, with their fragile homes and their possessions washed away in the flood water. Mudslides in rural provinces have brought further loss of life and logistic chaos. A second storm, being forecast as a ‘super typhoon’ is expected to hit the Philippines this weekend.

‘The needs are enormous and after the initial loss there comes the sense of devastation and shock. People – many of whom are already desperately poor – are left with nothing,’ says Reuben Coulter, Tearfund Ireland Chief Executive. ‘Homes and livelihoods are destroyed; loved ones are lost or missing – the disorientation and trauma is unimaginable. The relief effort is being built up daily. Our partner relief teams in Sumatra and in Metro Manila are assessing the need and responding, but we can also surround the crises and the families affected in prayer.’

Immediate needs to that Tearfund partner’s are supplying are:
• access to clean water
• food aid and basic items
• shelter provision
• medical supplies and counselling support for the grieving and distressed

Healing the wounds of sexual violence in Congo

Healing the wounds of sexual violence in Congo – 4 Sep 2009

Sarah has seen sights that no eyes would want to witness. Sights that could disable her mind and shackle her memory to a lifetime of pain, anger and bitterness. Sights that could leave even the strongest faith in humanity blurred and dazed, if not irrevocably shattered.

The incidents of rape, torture and murder that she has seen in the troubled Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) makes her response to the perpetrators all the more remarkable: `I have very strong faith. I have forgotten everything already. I have forgiven them. If I don’t forgive them, I won’t be free.’ It’s a jaw-droppingly forward-looking statement from a 37-year-old woman who was so traumatised after being attacked that she thought people coming to help her were actually going to kill her.

Sarah’s story begins in Maniema Province in eastern DRC where she was living with her husband and three children.

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Buried alive

Fighting there between government and rebel forces did not spare the civilian population and one day it touched Sarah’s life like a hammer on glass. `There were lots of attacks against people by rebel soldiers,’ recalls Sarah. `They even dug holes and buried people alive. `They told people to have sex with their own partners in the presence of everyone, even to have sex with their own brothers and sisters. If we didn’t do that they would kill us. Many women witnessed that.’

Sarah was raped but survived although after the attack there was no treatment available for her physical injuries, let alone the emotional ones.
Tearfund has been working through local church partners in DRC for 20 years.

Surgery

One of those partners is Heal Africa which runs medical services centred on a hospital in Goma, in neighbouring North Kivu province, and it was its workers that found Sarah.

The prevalence of conflict-related rape in eastern DRC means Heal Africa counsellors travel long distances into danger areas to help women like Sarah. She recalls, `At first we were very scared and refused to go with them because we didn’t know where we were going and feared maybe these people were going to kill us. When we heard it was a hospital, we agreed to go.’ Based now in Goma, Sarah is receiving treatment for her physical injuries and is awaiting surgery.

She’s also getting help from Heal Africa staff for her deep emotional suffering, which has been compounded by being rejected by her husband who has kept two of their children. `When we have counselling we are told that we are human beings and we feel better in our hearts and encouraged.’

Her family’s rejection means Sarah will be vulnerable economically when she eventually leaves hospital and starts rebuilding her life. Here too Heal Africa is helping with its Healing Arts Programme. This teaches women, who have been attacked and rejected, new skills that can enable them to earn an independent living, such as how to make clothes, bags and crafts.

When a Tearfund team visited recently, Heal Africa’s hospital had 164 women like Sarah who have been sexually attacked, with operating rooms and surgeons dedicated to their treatment. In addition it runs a mediation service to help reunite women with families that have rejected them because they have been raped. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has praised the work of Tearfund partner Heal Africa in helping women who have suffered sexual attacks in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Mrs Clinton made her comments during a visit to conflict-affected North Kivu province in August.

There she met with hospital workers and patients, including women recovering from the physical and psychological effects of rape.
`Heal Africa is doing amazing work,’ said the Secretary of State, who is on a seven country tour of Africa.

But the scale of the problem is immense, with the UN Children’s Fund estimating that 200,000 women and girls have been assaulted over the past 12 years in DRC, as rape has been used as a weapon of war. With the recent arrest of a key rebel leader improving the prospects of peace, Tearfund has launched an emergency appeal for those affected by conflict in DRC to further support the work of partners like Heal Africa and that of our own disaster response teams.

Recovery work

Since last August, some 250,000 people have been forced to flee their homes due to fighting between Congolese and rebel forces, with North Kivu being particularly badly affected. Another 150,000 have been displaced since last December in north east Province Orientale where Ugandan LRA rebels have entered DRC.

Tearfund’s emergency appeal aims to help these people and also to assist in longer term recovery work, such as that in South Kivu. Here Tearfund teams have supplied new homes, rebuilt schools, provided sanitation and given agricultural support so people can earn a living again. Since 2002, more than 50,000 people have been helped to resettle into their conflict-affected communities and to rebuild their lives.

It would be easy to consider a country that in recent years has seen more than 5 million people die and another 2 million become homeless due to war and humanitarian crisis as a lost cause. But Sarah, who has seen so much of its suffering, has an attitude that offers hope and challenges indifference. `We want to live in peace and unity. If we live in unity, there will be many people willing to help us.’

• Names have been changed to protect identities.
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Sri Lanka Emergency Response – 27 Apr 2009

Tearfund partners are feeding thousands of hungry Sri Lankan civilians fleeing intense fighting between government forces and the Tamil Tigers. Tens of thousands of people have escaped the conflict zone in the country’s north east in recent days as the offensive against the rebels nears its climax. Conditions within the zone are said to be atrocious with food shortages causing severe hunger. People are living in tents and facing inadequate access to water and sanitation. Visit the BBC News website for latest details.

An email came in from our partner World Concern who are helping casualties being evacuated by ship from the fighting in the north of Sri Lanka.  They wrote:

“We are providing medical assistance to casualties now arriving on fishing boats ferrying patients from the ship.  We are now transferring the injured to hospital and the dead to the mortuary. I won’t forget a young mother who died named Jayanthini. She was only 20 years and had a child of 2 months. It was so sad to watch the young father trying to feed the child with a feeding bottle, a church volunteer was trying to teach him how to prepare the milk to feed the child at 1 am. Words cannot simply express the help you are doing to all of us. Thank you all for all your prayers.”

Our partners are providing emergency medical assistance, food and shelter to the conflict-affected people. But with tens of thousands still fleeing the fighting and the final military push expected imminently, the need for help remains great and all our partners could use a lot more money and prayer.

Fresh conflict in eastern Congo – 12 Apr 2009

Staff working with a Tearfund partner, Heal Africa in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s unstable eastern region are reporting a growing humanitarian crisis and evidence of torture. They runs a hospital in the regional capital Goma, is one of the few humanitarian organisations still operating there as intense fighting between rebel and government forces has moved closer to the city. They have been treating civilian casualties, including victims of torture and banditry.
 

An entire family were hospitalised after being attacked, with four children left seriously injured and their mother showing evidence of being tortured.The family reported their attackers had put a grenade under the bed of a sleeping six-year-old. Surgeons have been battling to save the boy’s life and that of his seriously injured older brother.Lyn added, `We pray they will survive. Such cruelty is incomprehensible. It has nothing to do with war, it is banditry and terrorism.’

Their assault has prompted 250,000 people to flee their homes, taking the total of displaced people in North Kivu to more than a million, leading Tearfund and other aid agencies to warn of an unfolding humanitarian disaster.

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