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Women arriving after walking through the swamp for hours. Photo: Pedro Mariel/Oxfam

Swamp is all that many South Sudanese mothers can see for miles. They journey through it, by foot or canoe, pursuing food. Medicine. Aid. The bare minimum to keep their children going during this time of hunger and conflict.

Years of conflict in South Sudan has resulted in famine. Over five million people – 40 per cent of the population – are in desperate need of food assistance.

Usually, only women and their children make this journey. Leave their homes in pursuit of survival. The husbands stay back, hoping to protect their homes from becoming a casualty of conflict.

Fuelled by ground water lily bulbs and the occasional swamp-dwelling fish, mothers make these trips motivated by the thought of being able to provide for their children and keep them safe.

Dylan Quinnell, a Kiwi who works for Oxfam Australia, was recently in South Sudan. He heard some of the stories of these courageous mothers first-hand, and told them to Radio New Zealand (link):

“They told us of how they had to get their children, get their belongings, hide in the bush for two days with no food as the fighting was all around them. As soon as it was safe enough they put the children and what few goods they had onto tarpaulins and actually dragged them through the swamps for as many as nine days.

”One of the mothers we met was eight-and-a-half months pregnant at the time and she actually gave birth to her daughter in the swamp. She’s given her a name in South Sudanese that means ‘born in a crisis’.”

Photo: Bruno Bierrenbach-Feder/Oxfam

Fleeing recent attacks, Nyandiew (right) and Nyachak (far left) ferried their children to safety via canoe. They had to leave their husbands behind and now they cannot go home. If they go to the mainland, they worry they won’t be able to receive food from the World Health Programme.

Photo: Bruno Bierrenbach-Feder/Oxfam

Tabitha is resting with her daughter, who is sucking on “tuok’’ (a dry seed from a palm tree).

“I was here before as an IDP [internally displaced person] and returned home in late 2016,” she says. “It is so unfortunate that the conflict resurfaced again. I do not think I will go back again until I am sure all is well again. Most of our animals died on the way. We feed on water lilies, fish, and anything we could find in the river. What we currently need is food, medication and NFIs [non-food items] shall be of great assistance to us. The more time it takes the worse it shall be for us.”

Some of the names in this story have been changed to protect the individuals.

The people of South Sudan are doing all they can to help themselves. We need to get more food, clean water, and other vital support to the most vulnerable people.

Auckland’s very own Sarah Badju was recently in Nigeria with Oxfam’s WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) team.

A violent seven-year conflict in Nigeria involving Boko Haram and the military operations to counter them has forced millions of civilians to flee their homes in search of safety. Millions of people in the country, and also in Niger and Chad, are now living in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps or host communities and are in desperate need of food, water, shelter and sanitation.

Oxfam in Nigeria has well-established programmes in some areas, however many places have been deemed too insecure or too physically difficult for humanitarian organisations to access – meaning that thousands of people aren’t receiving the aid that they desperately need.

The Oxfam Rapid Response team in Maiduguri have been working to try and reach more of these people. Oxfam is now starting programmes in three newly accessible areas (NAAs) in Borno state: Gwoza Town, Pulka and Rann.

New arrivals seeking refuge in Rann. Photo: Sarah Badju

Sarah Badju assisted with WASH work in one of these NAAs – Rann, in Borno State.

Rann was attacked by Boko Haram in April/May 2014 and wasn’t retaken by the Nigerian Army until March 2016. The people of Rann fled from the attacks, and have not returned as yet.

The majority of people in Rann now are Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) who have inhabited the town and are living in the abandoned and damaged shelters, as there is no camp set up.

The area is in desperate need of water and sanitation, and the infrastructure desperately needs to be repaired after the destruction caused by Boko Haram.

Around 40-50 households came to Rann each day while Sarah was there. That’s about 300-350 individuals. The town’s original population was 2,500, but it has now increased to 50,000.

 

A lady in Rann who received a hygiene kit and dignity kit from Oxfam. She told Sarah that she had walked for two days with her children to get to Rann. She came here to get away from “the boys” (Boko Haram). Photo: Sarah Badju

Oxfam’s response

Oxfam ran focus groups with both women and men, Nigerian Red Cross volunteers, the Nigerian Army and Youth Leaders to gauge what people’s greatest needs were. Women and men both expressed that they desperately needed more water access. Men also said that accessing food was a priority, and women expressed a need for livelihood opportunities.

When Oxfam arrived, it was estimated that people only had access to 3-4 litres of water per day (less than half of the amount of a flush of a Western toilet).

Oxfam have since distributed hygiene kits, environmental cleaning kits and dignity kits. We’re building enough toilets for 10,000 people, and have drilled 5 new boreholes which will provide people with clean water.

Oxfam’s environmental cleaning kits. Photo: Sarah Badju

The start of a new toilet that Oxfam is building. Photo: Sarah Badju

The priorities for Oxfam’s response are:

• Water provision, particularly the construction of boreholes
• Sanitation, particularly the construction of toilets that women and children can access
• Hygiene promotion, particularly the distribution of kits and water buckets and running hygiene training activities

Since the Syria Crisis began in 2011, just over 15,000 Syrians have moved to the US. Syrian families make the journey to the US, and other countries around the world, driven by the desire of safety, and giving their children a future with opportunity.

Below are four stories of families – brave families – who have journeyed to the US to start a new life with the help of the Syrian Community Network, a Chicago-based Oxfam ally.

Ahmed Abizaid is a father of five. The day bullets from a sniper’s gun shattered his leg when he was leaving work in Dera’a, his life changed forever. The injury to his thigh was so severe that for the first 15 minutes he felt nothing, but racing through his mind were his wife and children and deep anxiety about what might become of them.

Afraid to go to the local hospital, his townspeople arranged to smuggle him into Jordan, avoiding guards at the border. His family followed him after two months. Five operations later, Abizaid now has steel plates in his leg to stabilize it and is hoping for continued medical care of the injury here.

“It took two years ‘till I could walk,” he said. “The first year I could not put my leg on the ground at all. There was no movement. Now I can walk 200 to 300 meters, and it wears me out.”

Now resettled in a suburb of Chicago, and with a new baby having arrived last summer, Abizaid, his wife, and their five children—one of whom is Sham—are learning to navigate in a whole new world.

And as he feels his way through all the uncertainties, there is one thing he never loses sight of: the future his children will have. For Abizaid, that is the best thing about being in America.

“My children will be educated,” he said. “My children’s future is the most important thing for me.”

And though school has only just started, they’re learning English quickly, especially his oldest daughter, who is 13.

“I ask her sometimes, ‘what is this?’ and she translates for me a little,” said Abizaid, sounding justifiably proud. “You know, it’s all new to her, too, but she’s learning.”

There are other satisfactions, too—things some Americans may take for granted since they haven’t experienced otherwise.

“We feel safe,” said Abizaid simply. “And what’s more important, I’m seeing the order here. The order in America is the best. . . I see it much better than what we have. For example, when I see a car stop for someone to cross the street; when I see my children walk to and from school and I’m not worried about them.”

It’s been a little more than a year since Batoul Taha and her family flew to Chicago and stepped from the plane into the welcoming arms of a group of volunteers from a local church who have helped ease the family into their new lives after fleeing the war in Syria.

“When I came to the states I always thought we will have some financial support, but actually it means way more when I found the emotional support,” said Taha, thinking back on all that the church volunteers and others have done for her and her family.

Among those meaningful gestures was the gift of a six-week summer class at the Art Institute of Chicago, where Taha focused on fashion design and illustration. The volunteers payed for her tuition and materials—at least those she didn’t scrounge from home, like the fabric pieces she used in a construction that focused on textures.

The church group had a hunch Taha and the art institute would be a good match. They had seen some of her drawings, Taha said—a skill her father, a calligrapher, had encouraged her to pursue when the family moved to Lebanon, before coming to Chicago.

“My father, he knows how to draw also, so he taught me how to draw,” said Taha, laughing at the memory of her early lessons with him. “One time, he said you should draw it in the middle of the page. I was drawing at the top of the paper.”

To help her, he bought Taha colored pencils and paper.

“I love the materials,” she said, describing the inspiration she gets from them. “Especially when I see the white paper I like it so much—without the lines. It gives you the way forward.”

When Feras Shawish and Rehab Alkadi resettled in Chicago after losing everything they had worked hard for in Syria, they knew it wouldn’t be easy. There was the isolation of being newcomers; the frustration of forestalled career dreams; and the day-to-day challenges of navigating in a new culture.

But for all the difficulty, there are moments of profound delight—proof that yes, they can make this work, that they will fit in. And the best part is, their little boy, who is now 4, will probably beat them to it.

The other day, said Shawish, their son came home from day care and announced, with an ease elusive for people whose native tongue doesn’t include the sound “p,” that he wanted a pink car. There it was: the perfect “p”, popped from the mouth of a child who a few short months before hadn’t spoken a word of English.

“We cannot pronounce pink,” said Shawish. “It’s not ‘p’, it’s ‘b’, like boy. . . I cannot pronounce pink like him. Oh my god, he speaks very good English.”

So, by the way, does Shawish, who gleaned much of what he knows from the mountain of medical textbooks and journals he pored over in Syria. Still, when your offspring surpasses you—and he’s only 4—well, that’s something to marvel at.

Strolling down the streets of Chicago in a gingham shirt and shorts in late summer, Samhar Assaf looks so at ease it’s as if he has lived in the Windy City his entire life. Chalk it up to the movies.

In his hometown of Homs, in Syria, Assaf spent many happy childhood hours watching big screen tales made in America. Anything starring Vin Diesel got a thumbs up, and cities with towering skylines almost started to feel like home.

So when Assaf, 20, landed in Chicago a few short months ago, it was no biggie. Not at first. But it didn’t take him long to figure out that Hollywood wasn’t telling the whole story about the USA.

“I thought life would be very easy—from the beginning,” he said. “Of course it was not easy from the beginning.”

But Assaf has a personal motto: “If I love it, I can do it.” And he has been throwing himself with determination into every challenge that presents itself—including gearing up to get his high school diploma in the US, despite the fact that he finished his studies before coming to the US. But without the papers to prove it, and with a determination to go to college, he was headed back to school to start his junior year in September.

Photos: Coco McCabe/Oxfam

Many Syrians are still caught up in violence, are fleeing their homes and losing touch with their family members. Help us keep them safe and donate today:

Donate to our Syria Crisis appeal

There is growing scientific analysis that suggests the impacts of current and recent droughts in East Africa are likely to have been worsened by climate change. Climate change is not a distant, future threat: it is helping fuel emerging catastrophes in which it has combined with poverty, chronic malnutrition, weak governance, conflict and drought and created a perfect storm.

People are struggling for their lives as climate change aggravates already terrible situations.

The carcass of a camel near an Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp in Fadigaab, Garadag District, Somaliland. Photo: Petterik Wiggers/Oxfam

Understanding the impacts of climate change

Nearly 11 million people in Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia are dangerously hungry and in need of humanitarian assistance because of a climate change-fuelled drought. The worst drought-affected areas in Somalia are on the brink of famine. The crisis could deteriorate significantly over the coming weeks, as rainfall in March and early April was very low in places and poor rainfall is forecast for April through June, which is the end of the rainy season.

For many in East Africa, this drought is the worst they’ve ever experienced, or even heard of.

Farmers and crop-growers are most at risk. They rely on livestock and crops for their food and income, and this severe, prolonged drought is having a serious impact on this.

Food and water for livestock – like camels, sheep and goats – is scarce. Farmers are struggling to keep their livestock alive, and without livestock, they’re without food and a means of making a living. Photo: Petterik Wiggers/Oxfam

Due to the rise in temperature, fertile ground is drying out. This is preventing food from growing successfully and impacting families’ ability to eat those crops or sell them for profit at a market.

Scarce and erratic rainfall is also causing major issues. Farmers cannot rely on predictable rainfall which means they cannot plan their cultivating and harvesting of crops well. Shifts at the beginning and end of the rainy season, as well as unpredictable rains throughout the season, can ruin crops and leave families with no food or income.

The hot, dry weather and erratic rains are also starving and killing livestock – another food and income source for families.

Drought and the climate change connection

Climate change is real and happening now. The past three years have been the hottest on record, and average global temperatures are now one degree Celsius higher than pre-industrial levels – largely due to human activities.

Experts have long predicted that the frequency and intensity of droughts would increase as a result of climate change.

Here are two main factors to look at with regard to climate change and the crises in Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia:

Rising temperatures: temperatures have been consistently higher in these areas, and there’s a lot of evidence saying climate change is a big contributor to this. These hotter temperatures are fuelling drought.

Higher temperatures means moisture evaporates more, which dries out soil, prevents crops from growing successfully and makes it difficult for farmers to feed their livestock.

Scarce and unpredictable rains: the link between reduced rainfall and climate change is less definitive than the link between higher temperatures and climate change; however the decline in rainfall over the last three decades is unprecedented in persistence and intensity.

Given East Africa is already prone to droughts and has high year-to-year variability in its climate, there is disagreement over what is natural variability and what may be caused by climate change.

Most published research has focused on climate change’s impact on the total amount of rain over a season, rather than changes in within-season rainfall patterns. The amount of total rainfall matters, but when looking at a region dominated by rain-fed agriculture, increasingly erratic rains are also a major problem.

Seynes Awil is a mother-of-eight. Her family used to have 400 sheep, 100 camels and seven donkeys. Because of the drought, they now only have three animals left. She’s pictured here showing what remains of her family’s food stock. Photo: Petterik Wiggers/Oxfam

Governments across the region and around the world need to step up, take responsibility, and provide humanitarian assistance to save lives now. Short-term humanitarian aid needs to be coupled with support to promote the resilience of farmers and crop-growers. They live off the things that they grow – the very things that climate change is impacting.

Without global efforts to reduce emissions and to help the world’s poorest people cope with the effects of climate change, this crisis will continue to repeat itself.

Donate today to our Four Famines appeal to get immediate help to those most vulnerable.

Women in drought-ravaged Eastern Somaliland are being pushed to the edge, desperately searching for food for their children. Some have lost family members, and many have lost their livestock which is their means of making a living.

A lot of women are alone with their children in settlement camps, while their husbands have taken any surviving livestock to find water. 

Six women in a settlement camp near Burao told Oxfam their stories…

 

Ayan Said and her son Mohammed outside their home in a settlement for internally displaced people in Garadag. Photo: Petterik Wiggers/Oxfam

Ayan Said is 23 years old. Her family had a herd of 300 sheep, worth $24,000. As the drought wore on, they started dying. Ayan and her family travelled 50km to look for help. Now, they’re left with only 10 sheep.

A few months after making the journey, her youngest son Ismail, age 2, got sick with diarrhoea and flu. Sadly, 15 days later, he died.

Ayan near the graveyard where her son, Ismail, is buried. Photo: Petterik Wiggers/Oxfam

“We couldn’t do anything for him. I couldn’t take him to hospital, I couldn’t give him the medicine or food he needed. There was nothing we could do,” Ayan said.

“I am not well. I worry all the time. I am alone here with one child at the moment and I am terrified by hunger and thirst. I have nightmares about that. We have no water, no food or shelter. My child did not die suddenly, but I couldn’t do anything about it. We have no food for tonight. I am going to have to ask neighbours for it.

“Mohammed [her son] doesn’t really understand that we don’t have food or what has happened to our family. He asks for food all the time. I try to distract him, I tell him stories, sing and play with him. Sometimes I just don’t know what to say to my little boy.

“People must understand that here we need help. We need food, water, medicine for the sick. Everyone is getting sick. If the rains don’t come things will get much worse – and there won’t be anything we can do.”

Hodan Abdi Mohammed is 45 years old. Hodan said she lost all of her family, including her six children and her husband, from sickness and lack of food. She couldn’t go to hospital with the children when they were sick as it would have been too expensive for her to travel there. She has no livestock either, leaving her with no way of making a living.

Photo: Petterik Wiggers/Oxfam

Deqa Abdi is 26 years old. Deqa has six children – 5 boys and a girl. Her newborn, Suleiman, is just eighteen days old and is sick with stomach problems. Deqa and her children travelled to find food and water and ended up settling at the camp as she was heavily pregnant and couldn’t travel any further. She has no way of getting water for her and her family without going into debt.

Photo: Petterik Wiggers/Oxfam

“We eat once a day – only rice. My children are hungry and they complain all the time. I play with them to calm them down; sometimes, to distract them, I encourage them to play fight. I give them water and tea to fill their stomachs,” Deqa said.

“We stand here like trees, waiting and waiting [for the rains to come]. But it will get worse. I don’t know what to tell the children.”

Muna Said is 21 years old. Her family have been travelling for miles on foot and had to stop at the camp because she is nine months pregnant. Her husband is sick and is in the hospital.

“We had nothing left in our village, so we came here. We don’t have food or water here either – we rely completely on others. I am worried about my husband – he is not well and not getting better. I am about to give birth any day. Without food, I am scared I won’t be able to feed my baby,” Muna said.

Muna and her three-year-old son. Photo: Petterik Wiggers/Oxfam

Faduma Farah Jama is a 50-year-old mother of six. She lost her husband three months ago to measles, and has lost her father-in-law as well. Now her children are sick with the flu and diarrhoea. Her family used to have 400 goats and 14 camels, but they only have a few animals left now.

Photo: Petterik Wiggers/Oxfam

“We don’t want to complain, but the men of our family are dead. We don’t have animals apart from these few sheep and goats; we don’t have food. What kind of future are we going to have?” she said.

“The water is salty and is undrinkable. Without any support, without the rains and without the men to work and support us, we are eventually going to die. We don’t have enough food, clean water or decent shelter even. Everyone is in the same situation, the poor have become poorer across the whole of Somaliland. We need all the help we can get.

“When the children are hungry I try to distract them all the time. I try and tell them a story – sometimes it doesn’t work, and they cry themselves to sleep.”

Faduma outside her house in Fadigaab. She is one of over 3000 internally displaced people in the area. Photo: Petterik Wiggers/Oxfam

Seynes Awil is 30 years old and has eight children. Her husband is a herder and they used to have 400 sheep, 100 camels and 7 donkeys. The animals started dying last summer and they only have 3 left alive. Her husband is not with her – he is looking after these remaining animals and Seynes has no way of contacting him and doesn’t know where he is.

“My children used to drink milk and eat meat every day. Now they cry all the time. They say they are hungry, they ask for meat and milk. I try and give them a little sugar until they cry themselves to sleep . I cannot sleep at night. I worry about the future all the time. My children are suffering from hunger. It hurts me that my husband left me like this, I feel so alone with this responsibility. I have to do everything for everyone. I have to be mother and father,” she said.

“My children are sick. My one year old has been sick for two months now, I don’t have any breast milk to feed her with – no milk at all. If the rains don’t come this spring we will all probably die.”

Seynes shows her last remaining food stock. Photo: Petterik Wiggers/Oxfam

You can help these courageous women and their families:

Donate to our Four Famines appeal