Oleh Clarence Dol

RANAU – Semangat kasih dan keprihatinan terhadap golongan memerlukan diterjemahkan melalui Program Saringan Kesihatan Asas Untuk Komuniti Migran anjuran bersama Catholic Nurses Guild (CNG) & Affiliates Ranau, CARITAS dan Komiti Migran Paroki St Peter Claver Ranau (SPCR) di Dewan St Victor Bongkud pada 5 Julai lalu, bersempena World Caring Day.

Program itu bertujuan membantu komuniti migran di Ranau dan Kundasang yang mempunyai akses terhad kepada kemudahan kesihatan. Sebanyak lapan stesen pemeriksaan disediakan secara percuma, meliputi pemeriksaan tekanan darah, kadar denyutan nadi, tahap oksigen dalam darah, indeks jisim badan (BMI), pemeriksaan fizikal, pemeriksaan mata, pemeriksaan payudara bagi wanita, serta ujian darah bagi mengesan paras gula, asid urik dan kolesterol. Peserta yang dikenal pasti memerlukan rawatan lanjut turut diberi konsultasi serta dirujuk ke fasiliti kesihatan yang bersesuaian.

Selain pemeriksaan, peserta mengikuti ceramah mengenai pencegahan penyakit tidak berjangkit seperti hipertensi dan diabetes serta amalan gaya hidup sihat. Program turut diserikan dengan Misa Kudus sebagai tanda pelayanan Gereja merangkumi kesejahteraan rohani dan fizikal.

Kira-kira 20 petugas dan sukarelawan terlibat, dengan sokongan Fr Ambrose Michael Atang dan Dr Gofri Nenghilon. Seramai 76 orang menjalani saringan kesihatan, manakala sembilan beg darah berjaya dikumpulkan.

Inisiatif ini memperkukuhkan semangat persaudaraan, solidariti dan keprihatinan Gereja terhadap komuniti migran tanpa mengira latar belakang.

By Terry Priel

Asia was home to a near-record-high 16.9 million forcibly displaced people when the world marked Refugee Week last month.

That was only slightly down from the peak of 17.3 million at the end of 2024, according to a UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) report released to coincide with the week (Jun 15 to Jun 21).

One in every 70 people, or 1.4 percent of the world’s entire population, is now forcibly displaced: refugees, Internally Displaced People (IDPs) and asylum seekers, making the current era one of the worst humanitarian crises since World War II.

And another 4.2 million will be forced from their homes by war, political upheaval, natural disasters, and the impact of climate change by the end of next year, the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) warned in a report in April.

Myanmar, where a military regime seized power in a coup five years ago and is waging a brutal civil war and an ethnic cleansing pogrom against Rohingya Muslims and other minorities, will see the largest increase after Sudan with more than half a million more forced from their homes by the end of next year.

“The international community is facing a catastrophic failure to protect the world’s most vulnerable,” said council Secretary General Charlotte Slente.

“In 2025, there was a 14 percent surge in violence against civilians. From Sudan to Myanmar, warring parties routinely kill and injure civilians.

“Bombs are dropped on hospitals, schools and the markets that people depend on.”

A year of global ‘action and dialogue’

Refugee Week highlights the plight of displaced people through community-organized arts and cultural events and fundraising drives and personal stories of displaced individuals and families.

In some countries, like Cambodia, where some events included cyber scam victims helped by local parishes, the week ran for two weeks to Jun 26.

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the signing of the 1951 U.N. Refugee Convention on Jul 28, which will kick off a year of global “action and dialogue.”

The surge in the number of forcibly displaced people, many of them entire families comes as global aid and development funding is slashed, led by what Caritas calls the “killing” of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which had accounted for 40 percent of global aid funding.

That has badly hit major Catholic NGOs helping refugees and IDPs around the world, such as the US-based Catholic Relief Services (CRS) which was the agency’s top NGO partner and Caritas, the Church’s social services arm.

The Trump administration’s aid cuts also wiped out 20 percent of the UNHCR’s budget and a quarter of its staff, forcing the closure of 80 field offices around the world.

At a time when millions more are being forcibly displaced, Caritas warns funding cuts and growing isolationism, apathy and donor fatigue will kill millions.

“Stopping USAID abruptly will kill millions of people and condemn hundreds of millions more to lives of dehumanizing poverty,” Caritas Internationalis Secretary General Alistair Dutton said when the cuts were announced.

“This is an inhumane affront to people’s God-given human dignity that will cause immense suffering. Killing USAID also presents massive challenges for all of us in the global humanitarian community, who will have to completely reassess whom we can continue to serve and how.”

Slashing support for all those groups playing a major role in helping displaced people around the world and the US is not alone in this undermines the entire international aid network.

The UNHCR, particularly so because in the 44 UN members that have not signed the convention and some, like China, that have, the UN refugee agency fills in for the government in providing core refugee management services.

The 1951 Convention and the subsequent 1967 Protocol to the Refugee Convention set out a range of legal safeguards, including the right to freedom of movement within the host country; the right to work, education, and housing; access to courts; and protection from being returned to their home country if there is a serious threat to their life or freedom.

Asia struggling with large numbers of refugees

Of the 44 UN states that have not signed, 14 are in Southeast Asia and South Asia. Only four in the region have signed: Afghanistan, Cambodia, the Philippines and Timor-Leste.

Asian countries that refuse to sign, many struggling with large populations of refugees from neighboring countries, say the convention is too Eurocentric and not suited to the geopolitical and socio-economic realities they face.

They have a point: work on the treaty signed in 1951 actually began three decades earlier, in 1921 when the League of Nations, the precursor to the UN, began drafting a document to deal with mass displacement after World War I.

They say its legal requirements undermine their sovereignty and they fear they will be stuck with refugees permanently. Already, tens of thousands have lived for years in their host country.

Church leaders often remind us that Jesus was a refugee.

And Pope Leo XIV, in a Refugee Week message on Jun 21, said:

“I hope that the spirit that inspired the drafting of this important international instrument may also continue to enlighten the consciences of national leaders today.

“No one can turn a blind eye to those who are seeking protection and safety,” he said, adding people everywhere should “welcome those who are victims of persecution so that they may live in peace, with dignity, and look to the future with hope.”

As many around the world celebrate the life-saving achievements of the Refugee Convention and other international safeguards, there is still much more to be done.

The moral and practical challenge we face is doing ever more with ever less in a world of increasing need and desperation. – UCA News

*The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of UCA News.

Oleh Clarence Dol

RANAU – Sebanyak 46 pain darah berjaya dikutip dalam Program Kempen Derma Darah anjuran Catholic Nurses Guild (CNG) Ranau, CARITAS dan Majlis Pastoral Paroki (MPP) St Peter Claver, Ranau (SPCR) baru-baru ini.

Program yang turut melibatkan penyertaan dari kakitangan Unit Tabung Darah Hospital Daerah Ranau itu pada awalnya hanya menyasarkan sebanyak 30 pain darah, namun sambutan yang diperolehi lebih dari jangkaan.

Tujuan utama program tersebut dijalankan ialah untuk memberi peluang kepada umat Katolik di sini untuk beramal sempena musim Prapaskah di samping membantu dalam menambah bekalan stok darah di Hospital Ranau.

Sementara itu, jurucakap program, Sr Melania Petrus mengucapkan terima kasih kepada semua yang terlibat dalam penganjuran Program Kempen Derma Darah itu yang telah meluangkan masa dan tenaga dalam menjalankan inisiatif murni itu.

Baca berita penuh dalam Catholic Sabah Vol 69 No 7 bertarikh Apr 5 2026.

By Mathias Hariyadi

THE event featured a Holy Mass attended by Indonesian bishops, potential donors, and representatives from groups that have benefited from the agency’s aid.

Known for providing emergency response aid packages, Caritas Indonesia has been essential in directing funds from both local and international donors to those in need through a variety of programs.

Bishop Anton B. Subianto OSC of Bandung, president of KWI, highlighted the agency’s role during the celebration. “Today, alongside several bishops, we give thanks to the Lord for Karina KWI, our humanitarian agency, which embodies the compassionate spirit of the Catholic Church in Indonesia and abroad,” he said.

Bishop Subianto praised the unique motivation of Catholic donors, noting that their contributions are “driven by Christian faith and values, which we believe enrich our future lives with virtues.”

He also pointed out that Karina KWI’s humanitarian efforts have reached beyond Indonesia, referencing recent aid initiatives in Turkey and Bangladesh after severe earthquakes.

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