“Then the bombs started falling from the planes,” said Lena, one of the 150,000 people made homeless by the conflict in Georgia. “We ran.” Most ran without food, clothing or shelter – just what they were wearing. Women and children, the sick and elderly were all forced from their homes as fighting broke out over ...
“People were not prepared for the Russians entering their homes. They just fled. They didn’t know where they were going. They didn’t know where they were going to stay.”
Caritas Internationalis Vice President and President of Caritas Europe, Fr Erny Gillen, has just returned from a visit to Georgia where tens of thousands of people have fled their homes to escape recent conflict.
Laura Sheahen, an information officer for Catholic Relief Services (Caritas USA), was deployed to Georgia during the recent conflict. Here, she reflects on the first frantic week in the field.
By Antoine Adoum Goulgué, SECADEV for Caritas The Al-Nadjah centre is a handsome building in the Chadian town of Adré, about 5 km from the border with Sudan’s troubled Darfur region. With finanancial and technical support from Caritas, the centre provides training for local women, a nursery school, and a playground. The 235 beneficiaries in ...
By Tim O’Connor Saturday, 2 August 2008 marks the three month anniversary of cyclone Nargis. And despite the difficulties, Caritas’ immediate response, through the Church and other partners in Myanmar, has saved many lives and brought urgent relief to 82,700 children, women and men. Mr Jamie Isbister, adviser to the Caritas response in Myanmar said: “Despite ...
“The UN must also act proactively by sending observers to Zimbabwe to monitor any human rights abuses,” said Caritas Internationalis President Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga. He is urging the UN Security Council to impose an immediate arms embargo on Zimbabwe. Church leaders in the country said that without international intervention Zimbabweans face genocide. “As Pope ...
by David Omwoyo Seated outside the Caritas health centre in Baidoa, Mama Habibo Salad Habibo waits for help. After walking more than 18 km from her home with her two young children, she is glad that her sick child will finally get treatment. Hawo Salad, her two-year-old daughter looks emaciated and sleepy. Yet her stomach ...
“There was no one around in the village to help when my pregnant sister told me, ‘I want to deliver.’ I assisted the delivery and after that I became a birth attendant,” recalls Hawa, a traditional birth attendant now called ‘grandmother’. In the rural areas and camps of Darfur most babies are born at home, ...
Cyclone Nargis hit the Ayeyarwady Delta region of Myanmar (also known as Burma) on 2 May 2008, causing death and destruction beyond anything experienced there before. While the majority of people have received some assistance, very few have received enough to get them through until the next harvest and almost no one has received enough ...
By Caritas staff Although some calm has returned to eastern Chad after violence earlier in the year, Caritas staff and the people face hard times In eastern Chad, there are more than 240,000 Sudanese refugees from the conflict in Darfur. Fears of fresh fighting are at the forefront of people’s concerns. An attack of the ...