CRS is building transitional shelters like this one for Pakistanis coping with flood damage in northern Pakistan. Photo by Laura Sheahen / CRS

As CRS employees in northern Pakistan stood on the office porch watching the floodwater rise, they also videotaped a nearby building. Through the pouring rain, I see a ragged chunk of the wall being eaten away, as if the water were taking bites out of it. Then, within the space of a few minutes, the roof began sliding down. It was all over in a half hour.

After a day of waiting, the staff eventually made it home, using ropes as they walked through waist-high water to get to safer ground. The CRS office survived undamaged, but across the region, hundreds of houses collapsed. A few feet in front of the office, what had been fields was a floodplain.

All the way up the region’s valley, the scene is the same. Walking over one floodplain, my local colleague gestures at the mud. “There were houses right here.” I squint, looking for remnants, but can’t see any. Unlike other flooded places I’ve seen, there are no poles, no fragments of doors, no bits of clothing or paper. There’s nothing. Just muddy silt and rocks.

“We can’t even tell where our house stood,” says an elderly lady named Pola.

Catholic Relief Services plans to build thousands of transitional shelters for flood survivors throughout Pakistan. Piloting the program in the north, CRS built a 14×18-foot demo home for Pola’s extended family. The metal walls are insulated with foam, while a small yard cordoned by plastic sheeting ensures that women will have privacy–important in cultures where they traditionally cannot be seen by men who aren’t relatives. There are separate spaces for cooking and bathing.

“I like the structure and the design,” says Pola’s relative Liaquat, 40. He has six children and has been living in tents or at his brother’s house. “I’m thankful for CRS’ help–their engineer worked around the clock, even though it’s Ramadan.”

In the south, where winter temperatures are not as severe, CRS will build shelters from more lightweight material. For people who might be able to return to their own land once it is safe, most of the structure can be disassembled and rebuilt.

“We lost our house. We are sleeping under this tree,” says a woman named Noori in a southern region called Sindh, gesturing to three dilapidated cots. Some of the homes in her village survived—their high-water marks between two and six feet—but villagers are afraid to live in them, worried the flood-damaged walls or foundations will give way.

In another area of Sindh, villagers who still cannot return home wait out the days in a wide, barren field under thatching propped up by poles. Four dozen women and children sit here on cots crammed together in a space smaller than 20×15 feet. They’re side by side with water buffaloes also seeking shade in the 100-plus heat. At night, the husbands return with their other animals, and over 60 people will sleep here.

“We’ve lived here a month,” says 22-year-old Koonj. She is a new mother, and her baby was only four weeks old when the army evacuated them from their homes. “Our houses are still flooded.”

CRS is working quickly to get stopgap shelter such as tarps to flood survivors like Koonj. The next step will be the lightweight houses, made with bamboo and other materials.

In the north, where most of the floodwaters have receded, Liaqat and his family are preparing to move into their CRS home. Watch this video to see the demo shelter.

A woman walks through her village in Nimule, near the Uganda border. CRS peacebuilding aims to spare villages like this from a resurgence of violence. Photo by Karen Kasmauski for CRS

by John Lindner

“Rwanda changed us.”

I quote Michael Weist, CRS vice president of Charitable Giving, and a longtime CRS veteran.

In 1994, within the span of 100 days, 800,000 Rwandans were murdered during a grisly ethnic massacre made all the more ghastly by having been perpetrated by fellow Rwandans.

I detect a distinct atmospheric shift in any room of CRS headquarters when the subject of Rwanda is raised. Veteran CRS staffers take Rwanda personally.

Initially, I thought I knew why that might be. One example: our colleague Dave Piraino is married to Natalie, a Rwandan. She lost 100 family members to the massacre. Directly and indirectly, CRS experienced deep loss in Rwanda.

Still, the reaction to Rwanda that I see here in HQ is not primarily one of an injured party. On the contrary, the feelings seem more closely associated with guilt and perhaps a touch of professional embarrassment. There’s no question that many in the agency believe that, had they seen it coming, they might have helped prevent at least some of the bloodshed.

In fact, I think many are convinced they could and should have seen it coming.

So, if you want to know why southern Sudan is the center of one of CRS’ most urgent pleas for donor support, indeed, an unprecedented plea, ask folks who worked for the agency in 1994, the ones who were personally and professionally shocked by Rwanda.

Today, they see ahead in Sudan signs they recognized in Rwanda only in hindsight.

This time CRS intends to do something about it. Actually, we have been doing something about it. We call it peacebuilding.

This article briefly defines that term. But there’s more.

Tomorrow, I’ll talk about how I arrived at a definition of “peacebuilding” during a discussion under a tree in Nimule, Sudan.

CRS web managing editor John Lindner traveled to southern Sudan to report on peacebuilding. This is the first of a set of posts on the work the Church and CRS are doing in southern Sudan.

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Southern Sudanese who returned from exile established this village in Nimule, near the Uganda border. Photo by Karen Kasmauski for CRS

by John Lindner

How’s this for a leading question: Had you and I known in advance that on January 12 an earthquake would strike Port-au-Prince, Haiti, kill 230,000 people and draw one of the largest, most costly humanitarian relief responses in history, what might we have done?

Well, we would have done something, right?

The question is tricky and a bit unfair in that it begs other important questions. When did we know? What means did we have at hand to prevent, to warn, to build? How would we have spread the word? How many would have believed us?

So let’s simplify. Let’s say it was in our power only to warn, to convince people that a very bad thing was on its way. What if the only power we were allowed was to convince people to be outdoors and away from buildings around 5 p.m. that day? How much would that have cost? How many lives preserved?

These are interesting questions for coffeehouse speculators. The fact is, we didn’t see it coming, and other than noting the geological proclivity for earthquakes in Haiti, we couldn’t see it coming. We weren’t even looking.

In Sudan, we are presented with a far less speculative position. We see the disaster coming. We know where the fault lines run. We know to the day when the critical shift will occur. And we know there will be upheaval.

Sudan may shock us. It may sadden us. But one thing Sudan cannot do is surprise us.

We can look upon Haiti with hindsight and sigh, “What would we have done?”

The question in Sudan is less comfortable. Sudan has already supplied us with decades worth of hindsight. We know.

In Sudan, the question is “What will we do?”

Beginning Monday, a discussion of CRS peacebuilding.

Because that’s what we will do.

CRS web managing editor John Lindner traveled to southern Sudan to report on peacebuilding. This is the first of a set of posts on the work the Church and CRS are doing in southern Sudan.

This photo was taken in an area where violence had broken out over local border disagreements. War scattered populations and caused confusion when returnees claimed land others settled on when they were chased from their own land. Photo by Karen Kasmauski for CRS

by John Lindner

Why is there so much tension among southern Sudanese?

Ever had a problem neighbor?

Earlier this year, we had three vehicles in various states of repair jacked up in my driveway. Family priorities meant we’d neglected the yard; weeds rose like ground fog. We have two fences in desperate need of repair and paint. The barn is missing a rather prominent board, making one whole wall look gap-toothed. The roof screams for new gutters. The list goes on.

At one point, I turned to my wife and said: “I’ve become the neighbor I’d always feared I’d live next to.”

While in Sudan and pondering the neighbor-on-neighbor conflicts that seem all too easily to lead to violence, I tried to put myself in their sandals. I wanted to understand why violence seems to boil up so easily. I came up with the following analogy:

Suppose my house burns down? I’m forced to live in a motel, then maybe an apartment for a few months. But when I return, three families are living in my yard. They’ve built little homes and have a good thing going. How would I feel?

Now suppose I didn’t have recourse to things like deeds, plats, lawyers, courts, government and bank records, police, etc. It’s pretty much me and them. How would I react? What choices would I have?

That’s the spot many southern Sudanese find themselves in. War forced them out of their homes. Some fled across national borders. Others fled from their ancestral land to somebody else’s land who earlier fled their land … and so on.

Upon returning home, tribe A finds tribe B living on tribe A’s traditional homeland. The new residents have established whatever homes and farming operations they could. They’ve been using the river, the only source of water for miles. The returnees present a problem to the new residents and vice versa. And they have no recourse to formal means of resolving the conflict.

If you can imagine what that might feel like, you’re getting a picture of life in southern Sudan.

Beyond that, frankly I don’t know how you effectively imagine what it’s like to face all that trouble on top of years in exile, violent loss of parents, children, spouses, neighbors, friends, whole villages…. The internal stress level in the average southern Sudanese must be something akin to the exhaustion of long torture.

So yes, I begin to understand the nature of violence internal to southern Sudan. Life ever at the breaking point. But then I wonder, how do you begin to put out all the potential fires?

The good news: These most delicate flashpoints in southern Sudan are the easiest to extinguish.

More on that in upcoming posts.

CRS web managing editor John Lindner traveled to southern Sudan to report on peacebuilding. This is the first of a set of posts on the work the Church and CRS are doing in southern Sudan.

Two Pakistan flood survivors face rebuilding homes and lives where swollen rivers swept away houses and destroyed crops and bridges. Photo by Laura Sheahen/CRS

When floodwaters rose in his village in southern Pakistan, Muhammad Idrees spent the long, hot days floating. Sleeping on a raft built from tree branches, watching over his waterlogged house, Muhammad battled mosquitoes and snakes. His wheat crop was gone; so was some of his livestock. He piled household goods in the middle of the raft, determined to keep what he could.
Muhammad’s wife Sharifa had already fled their village by boat with their three children.

“I was shouting because the boat seemed unbalanced,” remembers Sharifa, 30. With other women and children, they stayed away almost a month.

Village children take a makeshift bridge following some of the worst flooding in recent Pakistan history. Photo by Laura Sheahen/CRS

Now the family of five is back in their village, a small hamlet of 60 families. Cut off from the mainland by a water-breached road, the entire village is covered in thick mud and dotted with shallow pools.

Like hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis, Muhammad and Sharifa will have to start over. Their home is still standing, but they’re worried about staying in it because of the flood damage. “We sleep under a tree,” says Muhammad.

Catholic Relief Services is distributing emergency aid to families throughout Pakistan. In Muhammad’s region, the CRS kits include tarps, poles and mosquito nets for temporary shelter, along with soap, towels, sleeping mats, buckets, and water purification tablets. “We really need the shelter materials and the sleeping mats,” says Muhammad. “And the soap, too.”

In a dusty schoolyard near crops of banana and rice, fathers who have walked from local villages wait their turn for the aid and talk about the flood. “The water was four feet high in our house,” says one man who lost his livestock and four acres of cotton. “The water’s still there. We can’t go home.”

Through local partners like SAFWCO, CRS has already given kits to 6,000 families and will continue until 19,000 families have been reached. Netting and hygiene items will help villagers fight the threat of diarrhea, skin diseases, and mosquito-borne illnesses that so often appear after severe flooding. Shelters made from poles and tarps will shield them from the blistering 110-degree sun–or against more rain if it comes.

With a bucket and other goods in hand, Muhammad Idrees sets off for home, where his raft now rests on soft mud. It will take time to rebuild what he has lost, but at least his family will be more protected with the kit items: “Everything will really help.”

Laura Sheahen is CRS’ regional information officer for Asia.

Tekwaro Onyala and his wife Agnes Avma Onyada are growing sweet potatoes. Photo by Karen Kasmauski for CRS

by John Lindner

Here’s a partial list of flashpoints in southern Sudan:
- Tension between north and south in the shadow of an upcoming referendum on unity or secession.
- Disputed north-south border.
- Oil fields located near the disputed north-south border. Both sides would like to see the oil on their side of the line.
- A long history of civil war has shattered traditional forms of conflict resolution.
- Greater availability of weapons.

- Inter-tribal disputes and rivalries can quickly flare into violence.
- Poverty, hunger, disease permeate the country, heightening tensions over resources like food, water, grazing and farm land.
- The question of what will be the rights of southern Sudanese living (and who have always lived) in the north should the south secede.
- Persistent threat of random attacks by marauding terrorists who have no clear political aspirations or connection to Sudan.
- Countrywide displacement complicated by hundreds of thousands of refugees returning to homelands now occupied by others.
- Border country disputes.
- Power struggles within southern Sudan should citizens vote to secede.

Am I skeptical about the prospects for sudden, wholesale peace in Sudan? Yes. I think it would be intellectually dishonest not to be.

But I’ve met some of the people you’d think would be the least sanguine about Sudan’s prospects—southern Sudanese who’ve seen and suffered the horrors and the dull privations of war and terror. Amazingly, they feel certain that, at long last, a measure of peace and freedom is at hand.

Has long-unrequited yearning for peace and self-determination caused them to see a mirage where really only a battlefield remains?

Maybe.

But when we look at all the forks in the roads to peace or chaos, the inter-tribal, inter-clan relations are the most critical paths. If just those could be cleared—and they are the objects of much of the Church’s and therefore CRS’ peacebuilding work in southern Sudan—a large measure of violence would be averted, a great portion of wholesale peace could be realized.

CRS is taking a novel approach to southern Sudan. Following the lead of the Church, we are asking for support to respond to an emergency before the emergency happens. We are doing a thing called “peacebuilding,” which I’ll write about next week.

Tomorrow, I’ll tell you why you’re glad you don’t live next to me.

CRS web managing editor John Lindner traveled to southern Sudan to report on peacebuilding. This is the first of a set of posts on the work the Church and CRS are doing in southern Sudan.

These guys are playing soccer with a makeshift ball. Most of the people in this village have recently returned from Uganda where they lived in exile during the last war. CRS’ southern Sudan appeal aims to keep them from having to run from violence again. Photo by Karen Kasmauski for CRS

by John Lindner

If you read yesterday’s Sudan blog post, you know that, in a shocking development, I was sent to report on CRS peacebuilding work in southern Sudan. The rest of this week, I’m going to write about the looming crisis in southern Sudan and CRS’ novel response.

That response can best be summed up this way: We’re making an emergency appeal for prayer, money and advocacy … before the emergency happens.

We are, moreover, making an appeal for prayer, money and advocacy for an emergency we hope does not happen.

We are appealing for prayer, money and advocacy to help the Church in southern Sudan prevent a truly appalling disaster.

If you follow the posts and stories on southern Sudan over the next few weeks, you’ll begin to see a picture of what many at CRS believe is the future of emergency response: peacebuilding.

Our Sudan appeal is a tough order for supporters: Help with a response that few understand, to deal with an emergency that hasn’t happened.

In the next few days, I’ll discuss the enormous forces bearing down on southern Sudan. The following week, I’ll write about this thing called “peacebuilding.” The week after — that’s a surprise, for now. (At least, I was surprised.)

CRS web managing editor John Lindner traveled to southern Sudan to report on peacebuilding. This is the first of a set of posts on the work the Church and CRS are doing in southern Sudan.

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