By Helen Blakesley

You could call Jean-Philippe Debus an emergency action man. He’s often one of the first humanitarian workers to arrive on the scene of a crisis — whether natural disaster or manmade conflict. It’s his job to advise, to guide and to help provide those in need with the necessities, like clean water to drink or a safe place to bathe.

Jean Philippe Debus supervises the construction of latrines at a displaced persons site in Burkina Faso’s capital, Ouagadougou, in 2009. Photo by Lane Hartill/CRS

Lately, he’s been spending a lot of his time in the Sahel, the swathe of land covering several countries in Africa, just below the Sahara desert. There’s a food crisis brewing there, added to which, rebel violence in Mali has forced many thousands of people to flee their homes in search of safety in neighboring countries. Jean-Philippe has been in the thick of CRS’ work to help those refugees who’ve crossed the border into Burkina Faso and Niger. He shared with us what it’s like to be on the humanitarian ”front line”.

The first thing you have to think about in an emergency response is how to connect directly with the people. Since we’re dealing with human suffering, it’s very important for me to deal directly with people with as few barriers as possible. Of course, there’s often the language barrier, which can be a challenge. Communication is essential in our work. There’s the ‘technical’ side where we basically help provide what people need to survive — shelter, water, sanitation, hygiene, health and food aid. But then we also have to think about people’s well-being, their mental state, and this requires communication and understanding. So that’s why it’s our first concern.
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Salvacion Pacatang at her desk in the CRS/DSAC Cayagan de Oro, Philippines Office. She lost her home to flash floods triggered by Typhoon Sendong in December 2011. Photo by Autumn Brown/CRS

By Autumn Brown

Seeing Salvacion Pacatang walk around the office as the area coordinator working with Catholic Relief Services’ partner, the Diocese Social Action Center, you would never guess that her life had been turned upside down only a few months before. She is a survivor of Typhoon Sendong, the cyclone that ravaged her community in Cagayan de Oro, Philippines on the night of December 16, 2011—killing many of her friends and neighbors and sweeping her home out to sea.

The morning of the flashflood, Salvacion traveled with her family to visit a sister—leaving her 10-year-old daughter, Delseah, behind in the care of her 20-year-old nephew, John Mark.

It started to rain very heavily that night and Salvacion began to worry about her daughter. Over the phone Delseah told her that the first floor of her home was already flooded. Salvacion began to panic. She knew her daughter could not swim. Their neighbors who lived in one-story homes had come over and were staying with Delseah on the second floor for safety.
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A CRS team distributes emergency food in Mopti, Mali to people who have fled their homes due to separatist violence in the North of the country. Photo by CRS Staff

Unrest and uncertainty are continuing in the West African state of Mali, as rebel separatist forces have taken control of the northern desert region. Interim civilian power has been restored in the capital, Bamako, after last month’s military coup, but Mali’s political future is still unclear. Violence in the north continues and many thousands of people are still fleeing their homes – either to move further south or to cross the borders into neighboring countries. CRS remains committed to serve the people of Mali and to continue its relief and development work there.

Timothy Bishop, CRS country representative in Mali has stayed at his post in Bamako throughout the crisis. He talked to us about the reopening of one of CRS’ offices and how CRS is leading the way in providing help for those displaced by the violence.

Two weeks ago CRS’ office in Mopti was temporarily closed. Why has it now re-opened?
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“It takes a trained eye to see when someone is poorer than poor in Niger. People are living in a harsh environment, it’s a semi-desert, many households can seem badly off at the best of times. But this year, I noticed a change,” said Jean-Marie Adrian, Catholic Relief Services regional director for West Africa.

“A very simple thing struck me. Usually, during the dry season, people weave straw together to make new granaries or they repair the holes in their old ones. But as I drove past villages this time, I saw very few of these new circular constructions. Many had collapsed, with no effort to repair them … because there had been no harvest that needed storing.”
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A camp for internally-displaced persons in Somalia. Photo courtesy of a local CRS partner

CRS is working through local partners in Somalia as it begins to recover from a devastating drought. Here is a post from a member of one of them. For security reasons, we cannot identify the blogger or the partner. The first post is here.

“Why are they shooting?” I screech and dive to the floor. The other men are laughing; this is my first trip to Mogadishu.

“Oh my brother!” the driver shouts over the machine gun clatter, “There is a traffic jam. This way is more effective than a horn.”
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A camp for internally-displaced persons in Somalia. An estimated 1.5 million Somalis have been displaced within the country due to drought, famine and war. Photo courtesy of a local CRS partner

CRS is working through local partners in Somalia as it begins to recover from a devastating drought. Here is a post from a member of one of them. For security reasons, we cannot identify the blogger or the partner.

Somalias are infinite.

There is the Somalia of Adel, who owns twenty camels with tasseled saddles; he rides across the sand with his cousins and brothers and a cluster of long-horned cattle, rising up and down and up like a fleet of tiny ships.
There is the Somalia of Wa’ail, who slipped away from the village in the cool of early morning and walked two weeks to find a school. Now he can read. “I would write home and tell them,” he says. “But there is no one to answer.”
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For the third time in a decade, a drought is threatening millions of people in the Sahel, the swath across Africa bordering the Sahara desert. Up to 12 million people, including nearly three million children, are at risk of a severe food crisis without a major humanitarian response to help those affected.

“There’s already 40 percent malnutrition in some areas,” said Bill Canny, CRS Director for Emergency Operations, who recently traveled to Niger to see first-hand the effects of the drought. “It’s a disaster for millions of families.”

In the coming months, CRS plans to help those caught up in the Sahel food crisis with food distributions and the provision of animal feed vouchers in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. Plans are also in place to assist farmers to better manage meager water resources. Closer to the rainy season, there will be seed distributions for planting as well as cash and food-for-work programs to keep people employed and productive.

Read the full story here.

How you can help: Please keep the victims of those affected by this disaster in your prayers. Make a secure, online donation to Catholic Relief Services to help fund our efforts in responding to this emergency, as well as programs that help the poor in nearly 100 countries.

Women gather grass to build traditional tukul homes in Jonglei, South Sudan. The town of Boma has received more than 2,400 people displaced by recent fighting in Jonglei. Photo by Renee Lambert/CRS

By Renee Lambert,

My colleague, Jane and I, flew in a small eight-seater plane from Juba to Boma Town in Jonglei, South Sudan. We were on our way to see how Catholic Relief Services and Caritas Internationalis might assist thousands recently displaced by conflict. In recent weeks, Boma, a small verdant mountain town of around 7,000 had swelled with the arrival of roughly 2,400 people displaced by inter-communal violence between two ethnic groups the Lou Nuer and the Murle. The U.N. estimates that more than 60,000 Murle fled their homes when around 8,000 armed Lou Nuer youth raided towns in search of stolen cattle and kidnapped children.
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Nida Go sits with her daughter, Glejen Ting. Glejenís daughter, Jharrly Jean, age 14 months, died when the house they were sheltering in was hit by a floating industrial truck and collapsed. Photo by Jennifer Hardy/CRS

There are many stories of flood victims weaving through evacuation centers and temporary relocation sites after flashfloods triggered by tropical storm Washi (the storm is called “Sendong” in the Philippines) swept through low-lying areas of Cagayan de Oro in the Philippines. Stories of the youngest casualties stand out.

Glejen Ting, 20, and her mother Nida Go, 40, sit on a gently sloping hillside, resting in the shade and breezes that were scarce in their first evacuation site after tropical storm Washi. Their faces reflect the long days and noisy, restless nights after their home was washed out to sea. They’re relieved to be in a new, more open site, but as each hot day passes, the reality of their loss becomes a heavier burden. They are grieving the death of Glejen’s first baby and Nida’s first grandchild, Jharrly Jean. The bright eyed 14-month-old girl delighted her parents, grandparents, and aunts and uncles. Now the whole family waits to see if they will have a chance to properly say their goodbyes.

Nida described her family’s scramble for high ground as the flashflood took her neighborhood by surprise. “When we heard the neighbors’ shouting about the flood, we climbed on a roof. When the water moved higher, we thought the tree near our home would be best. But there were too many people in the tree, and it broke beneath us.”
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Flash floods caused by Tropical Storm Washi have killed more than 1,517 people on the southern Philippines Island of Mindanao. Catholic Relief Services continues to work with the Diocesan Social Action Center of the Archdiocese of Cagayan de Oro and Xavier University to respond to the December flooding.

After assessing the biggest needs of the affected communities, CRS is supporting temporary shelter construction, hiring people in cash-for-work programs and creating access to clean water and sanitation facilities for displaced families.

Donate here.

The CRS Newswire will provide updates as more information is available.