Let's open the way

Bentiu, South Sudan: a diocese—38,000 square kilometers, 9 parishes—established a year ago, in a state that is the world's youngest. Such young communities, but with a legacy of ancient and oppressive problems.

A remote, almost inaccessible, extremely poor place, but one we encountered up close in the person of our friend Bishop Christian Carlassare, a Combonian missionary who has been in the country for twenty years. Roads, infrastructure, schools, drinking water, food… everything is lacking; life is difficult and hard: but it is nevertheless a living Church. Its cathedral of Saint Martin de Porres, made of wood and sheet metal, is a faithful image of the virtue of humility, as is the simple diocesan headquarters under construction. A Church that seeks to build a family, and to live its mission through communion and participation of the entire community. Sharing opens the way.

The precarious situation in the region is the result of isolation and a half-century of brutal war—two million dead, four million refugees—first for independence, and then for civil war between the country's two strongmen and their respective ethnic groups. A fragile truce still exists today. Like the conflicts in neighboring Sudan, these are personal power struggles between leaders, with no real dispute that can be resolved. They are fueled by the economic and geopolitical interests of opposing regional powers. The many weapons make it easy for local conflicts to erupt over access to resources.

Despite its "rank," the agglomeration of Bentiu is tiny, with neighboring Rubkona, home to 70,000 of the diocese's one million inhabitants—half of whom are Catholic. But the adjacent UN refugee camp hosts 140,000 people: dependent on humanitarian aid, which, by deliberate choice, has become extremely uncertain in the "developed" world for the immediate future. The region is also a small oil producer, but its people suffer more from environmental damage. Thousands of square kilometers of plains are inundated by the overflowing rivers, once beneficial in the rainy season, but now amplified in area and time by devastating climate change.

Many urgent needs, strong determination to address them: "Resisting, healing wounds, caring for one another, acting with hope": for Msgr. Christian, these are the keys to beginning to change a story. We fully agree, and we want to support him, to the extent possible, in the projects that will gradually be defined.

There are many different priorities, with the common theme of "education":
— 90% of the population is under 40, many of them children: schools are needed, with qualified teachers, more classrooms to reduce overcrowding, and meals for the little ones;
— New wells in the villages must be drilled quickly to provide safe drinking water;
— Healthcare, especially for the many lethal but completely treatable diseases;
— Nutrition: greater security, making better use of every possible resource. In a culture primarily oriented towards pastoralism, cultivation is underdeveloped, even in basic techniques: it will be essential to launch initiatives where the productive use of every local resource—crops, seeds, pastures, fishing, and fish farming—can be developed and passed on to young people in the various communities. Opportunities for more dignified living conditions are not lacking.
"Africa is not only pain, but a thirst for peace. It's a wounded land, yes, but not defeated." We are together.


Mauro Palombo
NP August / September 2025