Francisca Vigaud-Walsh, CRS sexual and gender-based violence program manager, reports on her presentation at this week’s Catholic Social Ministry Gathering in Washington, D.C.

I just had the privilege of presenting Tuesday, alongside Sr. Louise Cleary (of UNANIMA International), on violence against women. I talked about sexual and gender-based violence, while she talked about human trafficking – or the sexual exploitation of women and girls.
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A man sits beside his wounded child at a hospital in the eastern port of Trincomalee, Sri Lanka. The child was one of 260 sick and wounded people being ferried out of a makeshift hospital in Sri Lanka’s northern war zone. Photo by Reuters/Stringer, courtesy www.alertnet.org

As world attention turns again to violence in Sri Lanka, hundreds of thousands of civilians remain displaced in the island nation. Of these, an estimated 200,000 are still trapped in a battle zone without sufficient food, water or medical care. Tens of thousands of people who recently left the area have arrived in camps with only the clothes on their backs; many thousands are in need of urgent medical treatment including operations for severe wounds.

Church workers are responding heroically to the crisis, providing relief items and running mobile clinics. With funding from CRS, parish volunteers are giving cooked meals to new arrivals and distributing non-food items including pots, skillets and coconut scrapers (essential in a region where coconut is a staple of the diet). CRS is also supporting partners that provide education for the displaced children.

Displaced Sri Lankans are facing this manmade disaster in the wake of a natural catastrophe: many of those fleeing the recent conflict are also survivors of the 2004 tsunami.

- Laura Sheahen, CRS regional information officer

CRS is helping to build temporary and permanent classrooms in West Darfur for students displaced by the ongoing violence. Here, first-grade students sit down for their lessons in a semi-permanent classroom CRS built at a school for displaced children. Photo by Neal Deles/CRS

Neal Deles is Catholic Relief Services’ northern area coordinator and education program manager in West Darfur, based out of the El Geneina office.

I’ve been having fun meeting students at schools for children displaced by the ongoing conflict in Darfur. Most are shy, coming near me but keeping a comfortable distance and just smiling when I greet them. The more brazen ones shout out English words they have learned in class: “OK! How are you? What is your name?” I shout back “Neal!” or ask if they are “tamam,” Arabic for “good,” which always elicits big smiles. One time as we were driving away, a student shouted “Sit down!” I laughed because I was already sitting down in the car, but then I realized it was his earnest attempt to communicate with me.
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According to the Vatican Information Service, “this morning in the Sala Regia of the Vatican, Pope Benedict pronounced his traditional annual address to members of the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See.”

Pope Benedict XVI addressed his global hunger theme:
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Omar Shaban is CRS project manager in Gaza. Nicknamed “Mayor of Gaza” by friends and colleagues, Omar joined CRS in 2001. Photo by Kat Burnside/CRS

We spoke by phone this morning with CRS Gaza project manager Omar Shaban, who at the moment is living outside Gaza City.

We called to see how he and his family are faring following the recent bombings.

First, Omar assured us his family is doing well under the circumstances. They’re in a rural area outside Gaza City and, so far, removed from areas being targeted for bombing.

In the coming days and weeks, a chief concern for Omar and other CRS staff will be how to get aid to people who most need it. There’s no question the need will be great given what Omar has seen since Gaza bombings began Saturday.

Omar said he’d gone out earlier in the day and found shops and banks closed. He said Gazans lack basic food supplies such as flour and cooking oil. Power is unavailable in many areas, so even with supplies, cooking can be difficult to impossible.

Omar asked us to please “say ‘hi’ to everyone in Baltimore and the U.S.” Our thoughts and prayers are with him, his wife Sohair and their two sons Salam and Nour.

CRS Program Manager Sahar Shaat writes from Gaza:

We are OK , but we are still worried and expect worse and worse. The situation is more tense this time. Everything is sad and awful.

My parents and I live very close to the Palestinian-Egyptian border. We were forced to leave our home seeking peace and safety. We moved to my elder brother’s home, about 20 persons are taking shelter in a small apartment without electricity or cooking gas.

CRS maintains three offices in the West Bank (in Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Hebron) and one in Gaza City.

CRS regional information officer for West Africa, Lane Hartill, filed this profile that sheds light on life in Sierra Leone.

When rebels beat his father within an inch of his life, Junisah knew he had to join them.

The rebels were a nasty bunch whose goal was to overthrow the government. They were known for cutting off the arms, hands, legs and lips of Sierra Leoneans. Junisah knew that. And he also knew to survive, he needed be one of them.

Junisah Kamara, a volunteer vaccinator in Kailahun district in southeast Sierra Leone, sits near the grave of his father. Photo by Lane Hartill/CRS

I met Junisah Kamara on a trip to Sierra Leone not long ago. He’s a tiny, wiry man who, for a few years in the early 1990s, silently patched up and sent back into combat some of West Africa’s most brutal young men.

I met him in the tiny village of Siama in Kailahun district. Things are tough for him these days. Same with everyone else around the world. But when I hear people talk about how difficult their lives are—how expensive things are, the uncertain job market—I think about Junisah. No, I’m sorry, I say. Your lives aren’t that bad. Sit down. Let me tell you what Junisah went through.
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Our thoughts and prayers go out to the people of Mumbai and all those affected by the violence that broke out Nov. 26.

Catholic News Service reports that Pope Benedict XVI condemned the violence as “cruel and senseless.”

According to the report: “Speaking at his noon blessing Nov. 30, the pope asked for prayers for the victims of the attacks in Mumbai, the Indian financial capital, where suspected Islamic militants assaulted at least 10 targets in a three-day siege that began Nov. 26.”

Our Caritas colleagues in DRC have requested your prayers at this time. We asked our colleague Fr Pierre Cibambo, who comes from Congo, to write a prayer for Caritas.

Here it is in French and English.

Find out more on the Caritas blog.

CRS today published a statement about our current response.