A young girl in Somalia carries a jerry can full of water provided by CRS and a local partner. Photo courtesy of CRS partner staff

By Muzaffer

I have a daughter of my own who is now studying architecture at the University. When I compare her and the future she holds in her hands with that of the children I’ve seen in Somalia I feel deeply troubled. The only difference between my daughter and the sons and daughters of Somalia is that they suffer from the sin of circumstance. The one thing that separates them is that my daughter was born into comfort and they were born into poverty.

Of all the children I met during my last visit to Somalia there are two young girls that stick out in my mind, Fawziya, 11, and Naima, 8. To me they are the anonymous heroes and victims of this terrible drought.

Fawziya has never been to school and is completely illiterate. At the age of four Fawziya took over the care of her older brother, Abdulahi. who suffers from neurological problems that left him bedridden. All of her siblings attend school, but Fawziya was chosen by her parents to care for her brother because of her loving nature and gentle touch.
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Volunteers float relief supplies on Styrofoam to stranded flood victims near Bangkok. Photo by Elizabeth Tromans/CRS

By Elizabeth Tromans

Filling the lobby of Caritas Thailand’s central office in Bangkok is a mountain of donated food and cases upon cases of bottled water. The Royal Thai Army quickly loads the food and water onto a military truck. In the lobby I find a group of ladies from various church groups bustling about, loading a few last items into the truck and taking turns snapping photos of each other. We boost each other up into the back of the truck. Amidst laughter and heaps of food we manage to find the last bits of open floor space, lay a piece of cardboard and settle in together in a pile bound for flooded neighborhoods on the outskirts of Bangkok.

Since July, Thailand has been suffering from the worst monsoon flooding in more than 50 years. At its height, floodwaters covered one-third of the country and affected an estimated 13.5 million people. The flooding made its way slowly south to Bangkok and surrounding areas. The crisis is taking a huge toll on the poor, particularly on the estimated 2.2 million undocumented migrant workers who have no access to government services.
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Father June in the hospitality house, where he has been assisting migrants to recover from recent floods in Thailand. Photo Elizabeth Tromans/CRS

By Elizabeth Tromans

At the foot of an overpass about 40 km northeast of central Bangkok, Father Ongart Kaesue, known as Father June, pulls over his truck and announces, “This is where the flood begins.” A volunteer wearing a bright orange vest asks drivers their destination in order to arrange rides for the dozens of people standing on a nearby platform. “Saphan Mai,” says Father June, and the volunteer shouts the location into the megaphone. A few people with bags of groceries climb into the back of the truck and we cautiously continue into standing water.

Father June didn’t realize the calamity ahead of him when he began working with the National Catholic Commission on Migration (NCCM), a part of Caritas Thailand, four months ago; he had only just been ordained as a priest in the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate.
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It’s jarring to enter a medical facility in Somalia. I visited a hospital that had depleted its supplies and was forced to run without medications. In one room I entered I was faced with 15 severely malnourished children. There were eight such rooms at this particular hospital. The medical staff was completely overwhelmed. There were four to five doctors to oversee the most severe cases along with the countless others who arrived daily in search of help. Nurses were in even shorter supply.

Mothers are often forced to become both nurse and doctor for their children. They cling to their frail bodies and try to nourish them as best they can. When a person is starving, they can’t eat or drink, they require special food. In the face of such severe malnutrition, medical expertise is really required, and yet these women who have had no training and often can’t even read are struggling to keep their loved ones alive. The doctors provided serum and the mothers do their best to lovingly administer what they’ve been given. But there is no technology to support them, no IVs and no monitors to measure vital signs.
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I first visited Mogadishu in the 1990s. In the past 20 years it has become almost unrecognizable. It used to be such a beautiful city, and it’s now marked by overwhelming destruction. An estimated 181 camps have been cobbled together by people fleeing drought. They arrive each day.

It feels like another world. You walk the streets and see women with four to five children living in a house made of no more than sheets, salvaged wood and occasionally a plastic tarp to protect them from the rain. It really is like stepping into another world.

The camps are made up mostly of women and children. The women are fending for themselves. They struggle to provide for their children often in shelters no larger than six square feet. Inside their “homes” you’ll find cooking utensils and a place to sleep. Everyone is crammed together. There is nowhere to bathe. There are often no bathrooms. Aid agencies are providing water and bathroom facilities, healthcare, and food. The magnitude of need is daunting.
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People wait patiently at a distribution center in the Nakhonsawan Diocese of Thailand, where CRS and Caritas Thailand handed out rice, noodles and other emergency supplies to sruvivors of the worst flooding in 50 years. Photo by Donal Reilly/CRS

By Ross Tomlinson

The first indication that this food distribution was going to be different from others that Catholic Relief Services responds to was that the road was smooth and we got to stop for breakfast (rice and roast pork, spring onions and sweet spice sauce) during the six-hour drive to our destination. This week I had the privilege of participating in the ongoing activities of Caritas Thailand and their Diocesan partners supporting flood affected- families in Northern Thailand. It is an experience I will not forget.

In 2011 the monsoon rains came early to Thailand and in unusually high concentrations. They say there were three storms at once. The heavy rains were coupled with age-old water management issues: how much should farmers (and politicians) hold back for the successful planting and harvesting of crops? Is this all the rain we will have? As nature and water policy collided, storm waters thundered through the highlands and the dams. Paddy fields filled to dangerous levels. For the last two months Thai lowland farmers, town folks, bureaucrats and managers have wrangled with the hardest of questions with not much time: Where will the water go? Which fields will we flood, which towns will we flood? The flood waters were coming!
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People travel by boat to the flood-affected community of Agok in South Sudan. Photo by CRS staff

George Okoth,

The mid-September rains completely washed out road access to the town of Agok, South Sudan. This is the same area that only a few months ago received a wave of mass displacement after conflict sent thousands fleeing from the contested area of Abyei. Just as things began to settle, the rains once again forced people from their makeshift homes.

We arrived by car, by boat and by foot. The muddy roads only allowed our 4x4s to venture so far before we had to rely on the boats that would take us from one side of a vastly swollen river to another. The end of our trek consisted of a 3-mile walk to the town of Agok. Our walk was slow, hindered by the mud that stuck to our gumboots and made each step a heavy one.
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A man carries an injured girl after an earthquake in Tabanli village near the eastern Turkish city of Van. Photo by Reuters/Abdurrahman Antakyali, courtesy www.alertnet.org

Catholic Relief Services is supporting emergency rescue efforts underway in Turkey, where a devastating earthquake killed more than 200 people, injured hundreds more and led to the collapse of hundreds of buildings.

The 7.2 magnitude tremor struck Sunday afternoon in the eastern cities of Ercis and Van, located in a mountainous region near Turkey’s border with Iran. The death toll is expected to rise in the surrounding villages, where almost all of the mud-brick homes have been destroyed.
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The prayers of Catholic Relief Services are with those who have been killed and injured, and with their families. CRS will support the response of our partners in Turkey, including Caritas.

By Alsy Acevedo, CRS staff

Updated on October 19

Ongoing rains in Central America have caused severe flooding and affected thousands of people in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua. All four countries have declared a state of national emergency.

In Honduras, more than 69,000 people were displaced and the majority of the damage was done in the southern departments of Choluteca and Valle. In Nicaragua, floods have affected more than 133,000 people. CRS, through partner Caritas, is distributing pre-positioned emergency kits in affected areas in Honduras and Nicaragua.

CRS is also working with our local Caritas partner in El Salvador to provide initial food and supplies to a total of 5,417 families housed in shelters managed by parishes and in homes in the dioceses of Sonsonate, Santiago de Maria and San Salvador, where groups of families have taken refuge.

In Guatemala, CRS is providing immediate assistance through local partners and has allocated emergency funds to transport readily available items such as hygiene kits, cleaning kits, safe water kits and water tanks to provide relief to up to 1,200 families in Retalhuleu, Santa Rosa and Escuintla.