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In Darfur, a roughly 200,000-square-mile region of western Sudan, as many as two million remain displaced in camps, while another 200,000 Sudanese refugees are in eastern Chad. Most are traumatized – terrified and demoralized by the war and violence they have witnessed or experienced.

While the world has not done nearly enough in Darfur, humanitarian assistance is making a difference.

Part of that difference has come about because of support Church World Service has provided to partners and fellow members of the Action by Churches Together alliance – the Sudan Council of Churches; Norwegian Church Aid; and Caritas Internationalis, a confederation of 162 Catholic relief, development, and social service organizations.

Food, medicines, water and sanitation projects, education, agricultural inputs and tools, and counseling programs for the most vulnerable in the Darfur region have been underway since July 2004, and they continue.

Meanwhile, southern Sudan is preparing for major changes in the coming year. There are some four million people internally displaced by a generation of civil war in Sudan – three million of them, southern Sudanese living in northern Sudan. Some 500,000 southern Sudanese are refugees in seven neighboring countries.

With the January signing of a comprehensive peace agreement that ended a 21-year-long war in southern Sudan, so-called “spontaneous” returnees are starting to come back – but the situation for them is extremely difficult because organized returns by respective governmental authorities, the United Nations, and non-governmental organizations have not yet begun. As a result, returnees are in a precarious situation – hoping that help will come from somewhere. They are seeking support for food, medicine, and shelter.

Working with several partners, Church World Service is rehabilitating refugee centers in the region to assist the returnees. That program includes a component of CWS’s widely-praised Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience (STAR) seminars – efforts to ease trauma and promote reconciliation.

In addition to those efforts, CWS is supporting programs by several partners in Sudan working in areas where “spontaneous” returnees are already arriving. This assistance includes post-war reconstruction work and peacebuilding activities.

In these and other efforts, Church World Service continues to accompany the people of Sudan on their journey for a better life.

Story by Chris Herlinger/CWS

The art is simple, stark, yet powerful. The images depict, and evoke, a flood of emotions growing out of the effects of war on children.

A collection of 123 drawings made by refugee children from El Salvador has been donated to the (CTP) at ²ÝÝ®ÉçÇø.

The drawings were done by children, mostly 6 to 12 years of age, in refugee camps on the Honduras-El Salvador border. The refugees fled El Salvador during protracted civil war between government forces and guerilla movements in their native country. The children created the art based on their personal experiences of devastation and trauma.

Ken Lawrence of Spring Mills, Pa., was part of a peace group fact-finding mission to Nicaragua and Honduras in 1984. He was one of four persons from his group able to visit the camps where the art work was discovered.

Lawrence determined to bring back the drawings to show Americans the violence and suffering taking place in Central America, some the direct result of U.S. involvement there.

Photo by Jim Bishop

“It was hard to believe the horrible things that were happening in one of the most beautiful locations I’ve ever seen,” Lawrence said. “These are universal images showing the barbarism of war through childrens’ eyes even while being uniquely Central American,” he added.

After returning to the U.S., Lawrence went on tour with the children’s art. He sold an article detailing his experience to “Life” magazine, but it never was published.

The couple, friends of James and Marian Payne of Richmond, Va., long-time benefactors of the CTP program, decided to give the collection to EMU’s graduate-level peacebuilding program because “we felt it had a better chance of more people seeing this striking art work if it went to an organization that is addressing the very ills caused by war and injustice.”

The children who made the drawings would be in their 30’s now, if they’re still living, Lawrence noted, adding: “It would be something if one day these materials could be given back to their creators.”

“These pieces are a striking, painful reminder of how trauma can be reflected in art,” said EMU President Loren E. Swartzendruber. “EMU is grateful to receieve this collection in recognition of the work that CTP does on behalf of hurting people around the world. We will do our best to be good stewards of this gift,” he added.

Ruth H. Zimmerman, CTP co-director, said the artwork will initially be put in acid-free sleeves and placed in notebooks for public viewing. Some “will certainly be displayed as part of the 10th anniversary celebration of the CTP program being planned for June, 2005.”