In a time of crisis, compassion is the only way forward

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This article was published 24/03/2025 (432 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Last week I returned from visiting South Sudan, a country where millions of people rely on life-saving international assistance.

And yet, this is a place where people experiencing significant need have much to teach us about generosity.

In April 2023, a devastating civil war broke out in Sudan, leading to widespread hunger and displacement.

Abuk, a 39-year-old mother of eight children, is one of over one million people who have fled from Sudan to South Sudan since the war began.

Before the war, she said, her family was able to grow everything they needed. Life was good. But when war came, Abuk’s family feared for their lives. They walked seven days to South Sudan, carrying only jerry cans to fill with water along the way.

They arrived in South Sudan with essentially nothing, and went to live in a community they had never seen and where they knew no one. She had nowhere to live, so a local family invited Abuk’s family to live with them.

Every day, more people are coming. In one community I visited, another truck of displaced people was due to arrive. They will be taken in and supported by the community as best they can.

One of the people I met who had taken displaced people into her home was a woman named Aluel, a mother of seven. She survives by collecting firewood to sell at the nearby market and harvesting wild leaves.

Typically, her family eats one meal of sorghum and leaves a day, as they struggle to cope with the floods, rising food prices, and chronic poverty that have led to hunger for many people in South Sudan.

Even though Aluel’s family was struggling to make ends meet, she stepped up to help, inviting three complete strangers who had fled Sudan to live in her home. They are coming from a dangerous place, she said, so she took them in and showed them how to collect firewood with her. They will live with her until they have a house of their own.

Time and again, in every community I visited, I heard these stories of generosity — communities sharing whatever they had with people fleeing the war in Sudan.

The generosity of Aluel is juxtaposed with the U.S. government’s devastating cuts to USAID — effectively eliminating American humanitarian assistance.

For the people of Sudan and South Sudan, the effects are tragic. Pregnant women have lost access to obstetric care as health centres close, raising the risk of death in childbirth. Severely malnourished children who relied on life-saving treatment from nutrition stabilization centres will not survive. Programs providing education, clean water, food and medicine have all been stopped.

All of this, and more, was part of a critical safety net for the most vulnerable people in Sudan and South Sudan.

Without it, people will die.

And despite the magnitude of this tragedy, aid was only ever a drop in the bucket of the American budget — representing less than one percent of U.S. government spending.

Lifesaving assistance has been gutted for little more than a rounding error.

As Canada approaches an election and re-evaluates the importance of international assistance, I want us to remember the generosity of communities in South Sudan.

If people like Aluel can share their food and their homes even in desperate circumstances, surely Canada, a caring and compassionate country, can share too.

Currently, the Canadian government allocates 30 cents of international assistance for every hundred dollars of income earned in our country.

But even this modest amount has an important impact. I heard countless stories of how Canadian assistance has saved lives and alleviated suffering in a desperate situation.

This support remains an essential lifeline. It needs to continue.

Stefan Epp-Koop is from Winnipeg, and is the senior manager of humanitarian programming for Canadian Foodgrains Bank.