Humanitarian aid in South Sudan: Sant'Egidio’s commitment to refugees and peace

A load of humanitarian aid collected by the Community of Sant’Egidio, in collaboration with the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, arrived in recent days in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, with a flight organised through the initiative of the European Union “Humanitarian Air Bridge”.

The aid - food, masks, sanitising gel and soap for the prevention of coronavirus - is intended for refugees who have had to leave their villages because of recent, violent, clashes in different regions of the country. In this situation, it is civilians, especially women, the elderly and children, who are paying the highest price for clashes between armed groups. Many of them are forced to live under trees in the middle of the rainy season.Their conditions are made even more difficult by the pandemic in a country without adequate health facilities.The Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and the South Sudan Council of Churches, with which the Community has worked for years and with which it has concluded a cooperation agreement, will provide for the distribution of aid.

The aid is a concrete gesture of friendship and support to the people of South Sudan who have suffered so much because of the war: a violence that seems to have never ended, despite the important progress made recently, also thanks to the mediation of Sant'Egidio.

The political dialogue initiative, based in Rome, was interrupted by the spread of Covid-19, but remains the only viable way to give a future to this country.