Coronavirus: Wau Catholic Church Sends IDPs Away

Saint Mary’s church, the Help of Christians Cathedral in the Hai Jebel suburb, Wau – Western Bar El Ghazal state: Photo by Chagai Mading Chagai

By Chagai Mading Chagai

Thousands of Internally Displaced Persons – IDPs sheltering in the Catholic Church compounds of Western Bahr al Ghazal state’s capital Wau were sent away last weekend due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Area church leaders said they cannot risk their lives as the virus is now spreads across the country.

About 25,000 IDPs have been staying in catholic churches across Wau including Saint Mary’s, the Help of Christians Cathedral in the Hai Jebel suburb, Saint Joseph Parish in Sika Hadid, Saint Josephine Bakitha in Lokloko Centre and Holy Family Parish in the Nazreth area.

Father Moses Peter, the emergency coordinator for the Caritias Catholic Diocese of Wau says church leaders were concerned that the IDPs were living in crowded conditions.

Before the church began sending away the IDPs, Fr Peter says some NGOs educated people about how COVID-19 is spread, and how to recognize its symptoms.

“It was being announced in the radio and all the time the director general in the ministry of health comes to the radio from time to time to talk to people about how corona is a dangerous virus.” The priest told The Insider acknowledging that it was the reason the church did not want people to live in such a crowded camp to reduce their risk of exposure to the pandemic.

“It [COVID-19] doesn’t want people to be in one place. If it happens to infect one person, it can infect many people [and] that is why the church decided they should leave the compound and go to their houses.” The father added.

Fr. Peter said he realized that the decision to send away the IDPs was abrupt.

“Many of them left here when they were angry but those who have understood that this coronavirus is really killing and if it gets people sitting in groups or many in one place like that, it can infect many people and it’s dangerous.” He said.

Most of the IDPs who left the church premises joined relatives in and around Wau town, but those who came from villages miles away are being left to live on the streets, according to Fr. Peter. 

35 year old widow Mary Madut, a mother of 4 who hails from Mapel in Jur River County of Western Bahr al Ghazal state, some 40 miles away, says she cannot go home.

“I am sitting out here under the tree with my children because I have nowhere to go. This corona disease that they tell us about has even scared me.”

She says she cannot leave her children with anyone to go and look for food or fetch her food ration because she knows nobody in the state capital.

Madut says because of these many sicknesses, even if someone wants to give an IPD shelter, if they see them living in the streets, they would fear thinking they are suffering from an illness.

 “And here in Wau town no one can give you a place to live in for free. What can I do now?” the widow whose husband died during the 2016 conflict asserted.

Madut says she is in desperate need of financial help for herself and her children.

James Bal, a father of 5, says he and his family fled Roc Dong village in Jur River county of Western Bahr al Ghazal in 2016 when conflict spread to the area. Over the past four years Bal says his family has lived at Saint Mary’s Cathedral in Wau.

Bal says he cannot take his family home because fighting continues in his village.

“There is still war in our area. And there’s no way one can get to my village now.” Bal says he neither owns a plot in Wau nor has money to rent a house.

“We were living here in the church with the help of NGOs that were giving us food. There is even no way we can sell sorghum because this is the only food we live on.” He told The Insider.

By Sunday night Father Peter says, most of the IDPs who had been living at various catholic churches across Wau had vacated the compounds leaving only a handful who could not find a place to go.

Additional reporting and editing by David Mono Danga