As you will have read on one of my earlier blogs, the people of North Eastern Congo have been suffering brutally from the rebel group the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). We knew that over Christmas government forces from Sudan, Congo and Uganda attacked rebel bases but this appears to have had little effect. I have received the most chilling and disturbing email I think I have ever seen from Sister Giovanna Calabria of the Comboni Missionary Sisters in Nzara (Western Equatoria State, Sudan) and have copied parts of that message below:

Last week there was an attack by the LRA in another village in Congo. As usual, people were killed and others abducted. More refugees arrived in Sudan including a young lady with a baby only two weeks old. She had delivered a few days before the LRA came and abducted her. After some days in the forest with the rebels, during the night she was able to escape with other women. She does not know what happened to the others as it was dark and they all ran as fast as they could without waiting for each other through fear of losing their lives in some of the most horrific ways imaginable.

The following day she reached a village where no one was to be found, only dead bodies that were starting to decompose. She said she rested to breastfeed her child but she could not eat anything as the smell of the rotting bodies was too overbearing for her to stay. The second day she arrived in her home village, where she ran quickly to see what had happened to the people that she knew. She only found the body of her father whose throat had been cut by a machete. She does not know what happened to the rest of the family. She saw many other dead bodies but she did not stop as she was scared. The area was barren, with only dead bodies, burnt huts and crops left to tell the tale. She staggered from village to village completely naked as the rebels had removed her dress when they abducted her.

Near the border with Sudan she found people who helped her, gave her a dress, food and accompanied her for some miles until she reached the first village in South Sudan. Soon after she arrived in the Sudanse village of Rinzara where many other Congolese refugees are staying. The lady and her baby were so exhausted and unwell from their ordeal the local authorities brought her to us [the Comboni Missionary Sisters’ base in Nzara] by motorcycle.

Now she is here in Nzara with us, she has received medical care, accommodation and help. It was so wonderful to see the local women around inviting her into their homes, giving gifts to her and to the baby (a dress, some food, a piece of soap, etc.). Many other refugees who had fled from Congo came to see her to enquire about the situation, to ask if among the abducted people she had seen some of their relatives.

A few days later people came running from the villages clinging on to their children with whatever of their property they could carry. They came to take refuge in Nzara (in an area about 10 miles from our base) and they advised us to leave our house and stay with them. We appreciated the concern but we decided to remain in our place as we know it to be a reference point for those in need. Now the situation seems more peaceful but who knows? We go on day by day, we only pray to the Lord to protect our people, especially the young and the children, those most in danger if the rebels come.

With kind regards and thanks,

Sr. Giovanna Calabria (18-01-2009)

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Again today I have some more news to give you. A Sudanese lady arrived from Congo, from Diabe, the place where soldiers are now fighting and bombing the area where the LRA are suspected to be at present. She was abducted by the LRA three years ago and given as a wife to one of them who died after last week’s attack. She took advantage of this to escape with great fear of being re-captured as it would mean death for her.

She came to Nzara to report her presence to the authorities and she is now staying with relatives who thought she had been killed after being abducted all those years ago. She narrates terrible stories and is extremely traumatized. One of the accounts that she gave explained how some of the LRA ordered the women who were abducted with very small children to kill their little ones through pounding. You know that here women pound maize, millet and manioc with a wooden stick into a wooden carved container until it becomes flour. These mothers were forced to pound their babies to death. Those who refused were killed, those who did it were then asked if they had ever tasted human flesh. If they answered yes, they were forced to continue. If they answered no, they were told to try it now with their own babies they had been pounding to death.

I am keeping you informed of what is happening as we would like the outside world to know of the atrocities the LRA are committing that affect mind, spirit and heart of all those abducted. After these experiences, even if one is ever able to return home, with such dehumanisation, there is very little hope that such trauma could ever be overcome.

Yours sincerely,

Sr. Giovanna Calabria (20-01-2009)

I recently travelled to visit IRT supported projects in the towns of Nzara and Yambio in South Sudan. At the same time I took the opportunity to explore potential new projects for IRT to support in the future.

Day 1-3 The first three days were spent in Yambio looking at the HIV AIDS programme IRT supports with the Christian Brothers. When I had visited a year earlier I had seen Bother Daniel who heads the project meeting with clients under a grass thatched shelter that was open to the elements. IRT decided to build a small meeting hall, a counselling room and dispensary. These had been completed and I was delighted to see that every day they were being fully utilised. In fact the project has become so successful that several hundred clients from miles around use the services there. These services include testing for HIV/AIDS, counselling, treatment of opportunistic infections, group therapy meetings and an outreach service to the bedridden to provide high protein food items and counselling. The government of Sudan had also placed a nurse at the unit to treat patients and dispense medicines.

Day 4 I then travelled back to the town of Nzara to see the work of the Comboni Missionary Sisters who live there. They run a small hospital, teach at and administer the local primary school and run women’s projects. They told me of a terrible massacre that had taken place a few weeks earlier in the town of Bangadi in North Eastern Congo. Bangadi is very close to the Sudan border and only 25 miles from Nzara.

Early one morning rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) surrounded Bangadi and then proceeded to slaughter the inhabitants. Congolese who escaped the massacre and fled to Sudan reported several hundred people chopped to death with machetes, children forced into grass thatched huts which were then set alight and several hundred women and children taken prisoner.

Several thousand Congolese fled to Sudan to take refuge. However, many Sudanese villages and other Congolese towns in the area had been attacked and this has resulted in over 5,000 refugees and displaced people living in appalling conditions within in several villages within the Sudan border and close to the towns of Nzara and Yamdbio.

Day 5 In response to this tragedy, three Comboni Sisters, a Sudanese government representative and I filled a large off road vehicle with food, blankets and medicines the following morning and travelled to a place close to the Congolese border to help the refugees.

We were met by several hundred men, women and children who told us their stories. It was truly heartbreaking. Everyone we spoke to had lost either children, their husband or wife, not a single family had been unaffected. We established an emergency clinic and started to distribute the aid.

IRT is now launching an appeal to fully the support the Sisters relief work and we are trying to inform as many people as possible about what has happened. Read more at www.irt.org.uk/sudanappeal

Day 6-7 I spent the rest of my time meeting local womens groups in Nzara and reviewing with them their work and how they are managing to play a leading role in development in the area thanks to the support of IRT.

Day 8 I flew back to Entebbe in Uganda with mixed feelings. On one hand saddened by the plight of the refugees but at the same time uplifted by the progress being made with the projects we support and filled with determination to ensure that IRT does what it can to continue and increase its input to this part of South Sudan.

IRT supports two projects in Jordan. The first is at the Italian hospital in the capital, Amman, and the second at a school for blind and low vision children in the city of Irbid. I was able to visit the country in October 2008 to see the projects for myself.

Jordan itself is a beautiful country and quite a popular tourist destination with breathtaking antiquities and holy places in different parts of the country. The people themselves are wonderfully warm and helpful. Amman is an oasis of calm in a troubled region - it sits directly between Palestine to the West and Iraq to the East.

Refugee girl receiving treatment at the Italian Hospital in Amman, Jordan.This was my first visit to Jordan and I have to admit that I was most impressed with the work we support. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian and Iraqi people have fled their own countries to become refugees in Jordan. The majority live in poverty and if they or their families become ill they are not able to afford treatment at hospitals and health clinics in the country. IRT provides a fund at the Italian Hospital that helps the poorest refugees and Jordanian citizens to gain treatment. The hospital itself is a charity and, while it does not charge much for treatment, it has to cover its running costs.

I was taken around the hospital by the medical Director Dr. Khalid Shammas and a Comboni Missionary Sister, Sr. Carmen Herrrer. I was pleasantly surprised at how clean the hospital was and really pleased to see how committed the staff were.

I was able to witness a young Iraqi girl undergoing surgery to repair a fracture to her skull (caused by a fall) and the removal of a blood clot. Later in the day I saw her sitting up in bed talking with her father and two days later she was discharged, well on the way to making a full recovery. It was so satisfying to know that IRT had built and equipped the operating theatre and helped to cover the costs of the operation.

Refugee boy learning at a specialist school supported by IRT in Irbid, Jordan.The second part of my visit to Jordan was to a school for blind and low vision children in the city of Irbid. The school is also open to sighted children and is the only school that integrates blind and low vision children with sighted in the country.

IRT supported the building of two classrooms in 2005 and now we support the salary of one of the five Braille teachers at the school. Most of the teaching aids are simple but very practical and locally made. What are missing are Braille machines but I hope IRT will be able to find the funds to acquire these later in the year.

So all in all a successful visit. When I meet with the IRT Trustees in December I will certainly be recommending that IRT continues to support these most worthwhile projects.

IRT's new website is up and running! I hope you find it informative and inspiring. I'm Adrian Hatch, the Chief Executive of IRT and over the coming months I will be reporting on the field trips I will be making. I will be in Jordan in October visiting the work we support at the Italian hospital in Amman and I'll also be going to the town of Erbid to see a school for blind and partially sighted children where we have built classrooms and are currently covering the costs of a braille teacher.

In November I will be travelling to the towns of Yambio and Nzara in Southern Sudan. We support a number of projects with several different organisations in these towns and while I will be looking at the work we currently support I will also be looking to identify new projects. Watch this space!

Adrian Hatch, Chief Executive