Showing posts with label Akobo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Akobo. Show all posts

Monday, August 10, 2009

S. Sudan: 2nd Aug massacre by Murle in Akobo, Jonglei

Horrors of South Sudan massacre
By Peter Martell, Monday, 10 August 2009
BBC News, Akobo
Horrors of Akobo, South Sudan massacre

Photo: A girl shows spear cuts and gunshot wounds from the attack

First the gunmen surrounded the fishing camp in the hour of darkness before dawn.

Next they opened fire, then moved in with spears to finish off the wounded.

"They shot me in the arm and I fell, but as I was getting up they put a spear in my back," said Nyakong Gatwech, a 20-year-old pregnant mother.

"They thought that I was dead so they left me."

The attack on 2 August was carried out by fighters from the Murle ethnic group in the remote region of Jongeli state.

It was one of the worst single outbreaks of violence in South Sudan since the end of the civil war four years ago. Officials say at least 185 people died, mainly women and children.

These kind of attacks are becoming increasingly common in the troubled south, a region still recovering from decades of war with the north. It is one of Africa's longest conflicts.

'Clear massacre'

The few wounded survivors of the attack recounted their experiences as they recovered in a basic hospital in the town of Akobo.

"They shot me in the leg, but I made it to the river and I hid until they had all gone," said 10-year-old Dobol Jok.

His father sat by his bedside and watched in silence. Dobol's younger brother was speared to death.

"It was a clear massacre," said Akobo Commissioner Goi Jooyul Yol, who visited the site of the attack.

"We saw children and women lying floating in the river," he added. "I am wondering why people would do this to innocent children."

It is a situation that is causing deep concern.

Fighting is common in the region, often over cattle or land, but an upsurge in violence has left many in shock.

Even the unit of soldiers sent to guard the group as they fished could not provide protection - 11 were killed in the attack.

Many of those targeted had fled to Akobo in April after earlier clashes, but had returned in search of food.

Akobo has been accessible only by air for months, with its roads closed by heavy rain and its river route blocked by hostile neighbours upstream.

The last river convoy of 700 tonnes of UN food aid was stolen or sunk by gunmen in June. The military convoy was killed.

Horrors of Akobo, South Sudan massacre

Photo: A village elder recovers from a gunshot blast to the groin

"We needed to fish because we have no food," said Nyakong Gatwech. "The soldiers were sent to protect us."

The United Nations say that more have died in the south in recent months from violence than in the war-torn western region of Darfur.

Many in the south blame former civil war enemies in the north for encouraging the attacks.

"There are definitely indications of the hand of the north," said Commissioner Yol.

He said cattle herders had reported sighting "unknown aircraft" landing on unmarked airstrips in the remote region and offloading cargo. But they could not provide further details.

There are fears the north wants to destabilise the oil-rich south ahead of a 2011 independence referendum, which many believe will see Africa's biggest nation split in two.

Distrust remains high between the two sides, still divided by the religious, ethnic and ideological differences over which the civil war was fought.

Officials have vowed to open the river route, increase supplies and to beef up security.

But the youth of Akobo are itching for revenge.

"We cannot sit back and let our enemies knock us down," said James Gatwech, a young man in a market empty of basic supplies. "If they kill us, we will kill them."
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Video report from Al Jazeera, 07 August 2009

The UN says survivors of a Sudanese massacre in which 185 people were killed are desperately short of food.   Al Jazeera's Tarek Bazley reports on the violence near Akobo in southern Sudan, 07 August 2009:



Click on Jonglei label here below for related reports and updates.

In southern Sudan a humanitarian disaster more serious than that in Darfur is unfolding - Important video report by Tracy McVeigh and John Domokos

Be sure to view the short video clip in the following must-read report.
Africa's longest-running civil war is over and a new country is supposed to grow out of it. But there are few schools or roads and the people live in fear of kidnap and death. Soon, Southern Sudan's humanitarian disaster could dwarf that of its neighbour Darfur.

Southern Sudan faces the 'humanitarian perfect storm'. Tracy McVeigh and John Domokos report on how guns, cattle and children are the new commodities in a region whose fragile peace could be shattered at any moment.

Tracy McVeigh and John Domokos report on the challenges facing southern Sudan.  Click here to view their important video report.
From The Observer, Sunday 21 June 2009:
Guns, children and cattle are the new currency of war in Southern Sudan
By Tracy McVeigh, chief reporter
Corline Timon shrugged her AK-47 off her shoulder and held it out in both hands to the commanding officer. Her back straight in ill-fitting fatigues, her face expressionless, the 42-year-old soldier took a step backwards; into civilian life.

The automatic rifle joined a stack of others in a pyre around rags and dried grass in a dusty military compound on the outskirts of Southern Sudan's capital city, Juba. A jerrycan of accelerant was thrown on and the pile set alight.

With this ceremony 10 days ago, 26 years after the start of Africa's longest-running civil war, and four years after a peace treaty was signed with the north, the disarming of the Sudanese People's Liberation Army, the military wing of the governing Sudanese People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), finally began.

Juba: AK-47s and uniforms of soldiers

Photo: Juba: AK-47s and uniforms of soldiers belonging to the Sudan People's Liberation Army are burned at the launch of a disarmament programme (Photograph: Tim McKulka/UN Photo)

Two days later a convoy of barges carrying UN food aid to 18,000 people displaced by fighting near the town of Akobo was attacked. At least 40 soldiers and civilians were killed, including children who jumped from the boats into the Sobat river and drowned. Last month 66 people, mainly women and children, were shot dead in their village, Torkey, in a tribal feud.

Even though the conflict with the Islamist Republic of Sudan to the north is officially over, war seems closer than peace here. And a humanitarian disaster widely thought more serious than that in neighbouring Darfur is unfolding.

It was in 2005, after two decades of bitter civil war, that the Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed between Arab-speaking Khartoum and the SPLM of the Christian and animist south. The president of Southern Sudan, Salva Kiir, who took over when John Garang, the great SPLA war hero, died just three weeks into office, is also vice-president to President Omar al-Bashir.

Bashir, with a warrant out against him from the International Criminal Court over atrocities committed in Darfur, and facing a build-up of military hostility from Chad, has a presidential election approaching. As the political agenda hots up, so does tension between north and south. Suspicions are high in the south that Khartoum would do anything to disrupt its independence referendum, agreed under the peace deal and due in 2011, even to the point of backing militias as it did in Darfur. The south has 80% of Sudan's oil and independence would nullify Khartoum's deals with foreign investors.

There are almost 50 tribes in Southern Sudan's 10 states, speaking 400 dialects. It is bigger than France, but no one aged under 40 has ever cast a vote, and a lethal mix of guns, tribal conflict, disease and displaced people is threatening to explode. It has seen nothing of the attention or celebrity campaigns that have helped Darfur. If the referendum leads to independence for the south, the new state will be born already failed.

Southern Sudan is awash with guns - 1,000 people have died in the past six months. Children are being kidnapped and traded, and cattle stolen, all against a backdrop of hunger and destitution. The government seems powerless to keep order and claims to be out of money. Last month President Kiir said oil revenue had been halved by world price slumps.

The numbers of refugees and displaced are rising steadily. Two million people have already returned from neighbouring regions, from the north, from Kenya, from Uganda, where they had fled during the war, and are arriving in towns and villages where there is no shelter, healthcare, food, sanitation, water or jobs.

With so many war-hardened former fighters and a seemingly unending supply of weapons coming in from neighbouring African countries and even, some believe, from enemies in the north keen to destabilise the south ahead of the 2011 referendum, disputes over land and animals quickly turn bloody. The lethal mix is exacerbated by a second year of drought, and by murderous incursions into border villages by the feared Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), taking advantage of the chaos to push in from Uganda.

It is, said the UN's Sudan humanitarian co-ordinator Lise Grande, "a humanitarian perfect storm". At the UN's Juba compound of block walls and razor wire, Grande says the spike in killings and child abductions is elevating a disastrous situation into a catastrophe.

"The unexpected fiscal crisis in the government is impeding its ability to provide basic services in what is one of the most remote areas on the planet.

"It is clear that international assistance and attention is making a big difference in Darfur. In the case of Southern Sudan there isn't that donor money and yet the death tolls and the scope of the problems are higher here."

Nowhere is the stagnation more apparent than in the capital city. Juba, boiling under desert temperatures, is a sprawl of refugees, returnees and aid agencies. Toyota Land Cruisers carrying multiple acronyms of international charities outnumber anything else on the two tarmac-covered roads. These cross and then peter out into pot-holed tracks that destroy the tyres and suspensions of the trucks that bring in the Ugandan market traders, with their pineapples, beans and potatoes that few can afford. The traffic brings chaos to a town where 10 years ago there were seven cars.

A few hotels have sprung up for the NGOs and the UN, and for Chinese, Kenyan and Ugandan workers here building boreholes and oil wells to drain the country of its resources. The prices are astronomical. Taxi drivers demand fares to make a London cabbie blush and dream of sending their children to school, abroad.

Even the government stays in Juba only part-time, most leaving when they can for long spells with their families in Khartoum, Kenya, Europe or the US.

"What can we do?" one minister who lives in the west asked the Observer at a party thrown by the British embassy in Juba to celebrate the Queen's birthday. "There are no schools so I can't bring my family back. There is nothing here. Even for me, coming back after the war was a difficult decision. My parents and brothers were killed in the war. My children are now strangers to Sudan, they are never going to come here, but my family died for this country. I come back as little as I can." He laughed and sank another beer: "I work for the graveyard."

The speeches at the party were full of talk of investment and building. But there are few signs of either. On one of Juba's many expanses of wasteland, 3,000 refugee families had built makeshift homes. But then the government bulldozers arrived.

"We had no warning, no time to even get our belongings out. They just came with soldiers and said they wanted the land for development," said Grace Ardlando, 35.

They razed the settlement to the ground, promising new homes. "That was three months ago," said the war-widow, who has rebuilt a shack of palm leaves and old flour sacks that won't withstand the first shower of the rainy season. "They said they would get us somewhere to live, but they haven't. With this demolition we are left with no water, no sanitation. The river makes many people sick. We had cholera here before and that is our worry."

Dr Thomas Akim, medical director of Juba teaching hospital, says it is well staffed. Despite his dogged optimism, diseases that are long eradicated even in other African countries, such as measles, polio and leprosy, are making a comeback here, to join malaria, cholera, acute respiratory disease and HIV.

Like the roads, health provision extends little beyond Juba.

"There are health centres, but they are not equipped to give services. There will be no one there and medicines, of course, are short," says Dr Akim. "It would be good if we could train personnel to staff the rural areas."

Southern Sudan has only three midwives, and one in six pregnant women die in childbirth. But none are as vulnerable as the children, born into war. The children at Gumbo, outside Juba, fear the "Lokwo dano" - people thieves.

"We were coming home from school when some men came out of the bushes in torn clothes. They were calling and offering us soda. We were very scared so we ran," said Susan Achan, 12.

Last month two of her friends were not so lucky. "We were picking mangoes," said Sebit Quintino, 13. "We saw the men, they were Murle tribe, and we shouted to each other and ran, but three were playing in the water and didn't hear. One of the boys turned up days later after managing to escape; the other two have never been seen again."

Gumbo, Southern Sudan

Photo: Gumbo, S. Sudan: Susan Achan and Sebit Quintino escaped a kidnapping attempt by a rival tribe. (Photograph: John Domokos/Observer, June 2009)

The boys are traded for cattle and made to work, and the girls are also sold off for a dowry of cows. Odii Odwong, 77, used to be a farmer but was forced off his land by the war. He then became a soap salesman but was forced out of his home by the LRA. Now he is a refugee living in Gumbo; the graves of his wife and son are directly outside his hut door. "We are squatters here and I have lost three of my four children. It is the children we worry about now, with all this stealing. It is a shame to see them so afraid.

"We here have been refugees in our own country for a long, long time now but things seem to get not better but much harder. There is a lot of crying going on because people have no food. I am not optimistic for the new Sudan. The Dinka and the Murle tribes are the ones we fear and they are on both sides of us. I would like to get a gun."

Guns are on the minds of a group of Bari tribesmen at Gudlle, a rural area of rich grassland north of Juba.

The possession of cattle is everything: wealth, standing, nourishment and pension. The cows will only be sold or slaughtered in dire times.

Peter Acihek doesn't even know the current market price, he thinks maybe it's 1,000 Sudanese pounds, but in fact it's closer to half that. He knows a child can be exchanged for one. Cattle are worth going to war for and their theft is a deep affront.

A few nights ago these villagers lost 100 cows, half their herd, in a night raid by Mundari tribesmen. They now keep the remaining cattle tethered close and cannot take them to the better pastures a little further away, so the cows are losing weight. "There was a lot of shooting and they took all of our cows, but luckily half of them came back to us in the confusion of the bullets," says Acihek.

In April the next village was raided by Murle tribesmen. "The soldiers took away our guns because they said they did not want a feud. Now we have lost so many cows that our children have no milk and are hungry. The cows cannot get to the best grass and they will get sick.

"It is a terrible thing that we don't have weapons to protect ourselves, but we will again get guns."

James Miyak, a Dinka man and former rebel who works in the nearby prison, has now been sent out by the soldiers to guard the Bari people's remaining cows at night.

"I will shoot them if the Mundari come back again," he says, proudly showing the civil war shrapnel scars on his chest. "You should be dead," the Observer tells him. "I will be the last man to die," he replies with a glare. "I have the gun."

Juba, Southern Sudan

Photo: Juba, S. Sudan: James Miyak, left, and Peter Acihek, centre, and an unnamed man stand with their depleted herd; a rival tribe stole their cattle in an armed raid at night (Photograph: John Domokos/Observer, June 2009)

Juba, Southern Sudan

Photo: Juba, S. Sudan: A dog waits with a malnourished child, Angelina, the daughter of James Miyak, whose Bari tribe's cattle was stolen by local tribe in a night time raid. (Photograph: Tracy McVeigh/Observer, June 2009)

Most post-conflict countries need investment to rebuild. In Southern Sudan it is needed just to build.

There is nothing here to raise from the ashes, everything needs to start from scratch, a whole country has to be brought out of the peach-coloured dust.

"Many people have migrated back to the south but now there is the same situation, the same reasons that sparked the war in Darfur. The tribal conflicts, the distancing from Khartoum, guns are very cheap and people can find them easily. Now there are signs of peace in Darfur, many weapons are coming from there too, from Chad, from maybe even sources no one might expect," said Mohamed Kashan, a Sudanese journalist in Khartoum.

"We are not casting you away," government minister Luka Monojai told the 16 SPLA soldiers being demobilised in Juba, "but reassigning you to new and important roles and duties to build a new Sudan. You must go with your heads held high, we are proud of you."

But the question of whether or not Corline Timon and her fellow soldiers can build anything out of the dust and despair of Southern Sudan or are forced to reach back to their guns remains unanswered.

A catastrophe in the making

• There is one doctor per 500,000 people and there are three surgeons in the whole country.

• Female illiteracy is 92%, compared with 62% in Darfur.

• Only 27% of girls are in school and there are 1,000 primary school pupils per teacher.

• Under the peace agreement, the Sudanese People's Liberation Army is to demobilise 180,000 soldiers, starting with women and children.

• About 3% of people have access to sanitation.

• A 15-year-old girl has a higher chance of dying during pregnancy than of completing school. One in six pregnant women die in childbirth.

• An estimated 96% of Southern Sudan's people favour independence from Khartoum. A referendum on the issue is to be held in 2011.

Southern Sudan suffers 15 of the world's 16 deadliest diseases.
Nasir: cattle belonging to the Nuer tribe

Photo: Nasir, S. Sudan:  Cattle belonging to the Nuer tribe are shrouded in dung smoke to keep away insects near the town where disputes over cattle have turned violent. (Photograph: Finbarr O'Reilly/Reuters)

Nuer tribesmen

Photo: Nasir, S. Sudan: Nuer tribesmen recover at a clinic after they were shot during a clash over cattle between two rival ethnic groups (Photograph: Finbarr O'Reilly/Reuters)

A clinic run by the charity Médecins Sans Frontières

Photo: Nasir, S. Sudan: A Nuer tribewoman visits a clinic run by the charity Médecins Sans Frontières after receiving a gunshot wound during recent tribal violence (Photograph: Finbarr O'Reilly/Reuters 2009)

Nuer woman

Photo: Nasir, S. Sudan: A blind Nuer woman recovers at a clinic run by the charity Médecins Sans Frontières after being shot in the arm during recent tribal violence. (Photograph: Finbarr O'Reilly/Reuters)

Photo source: Guns and disease ravage south Sudan (16 pictures)

(Hat tip to Kelsey's blog From Here to Finvara - Welcome to my world ... - 24 June 2009)

Click on label 'humanitarian disaster' (here below) to see related reports and updates.

Monday, July 06, 2009

S. Sudan: 3,000 Lou Nuer flee to Ulang, Upper Nile state, from Akobo county, Jonglei state

From Sudan Radio Service, Friday, 03 July 2009:
Three Thousand Refugees Flee to Ulang from Akobo County
(Ulang,Upper Nile state) – The commissioner of Ulang county, Upper Nile state, James Duer Chol, says that 3,000 displaced people have come to Ulang from neighboring Akobo county in Jonglei state in the past week.

Speaking to Sudan Radio Service on Thursday, Duer said that the displaced Lou Nuer are scared of attacks by the Murle community during the rainy season.

[James Duer Chol]: “The situation has been good here recently, but in the past week, large numbers of Lou Nuer arrived here, fleeing drought and problems between Lou Nuer and Murle. A committee from Ulang community has been formed to know who the cattle rustlers in the area are. But for the time being the situation is difficult because of the presence of these displaced people. I have met with the government of Upper Nile State and Government of southern Sudan asking them to help these displaced people.”

Duer called upon international humanitarian organizations and their governments to intervene and assist the IDPs.
- - -

Murle

SUDAN BOYS by Rob Rooker
SUDAN BOYS by Artist Rob Rooker. Young Murle boys standing together. Often, when visitors arrive in a village in southern Sudan, the children are always the first to come and investigate what is going on. 

Nuer
APPREHENSION by Rob Rooker
APPREHENSION by Artist Rob Rooker. Painted on a wall in Maridi, Sudan. The image is of a young Nuer boy looking up among a crowd of people.

Rob Rooker - Profile
Nationality: US
Currently Living: Juba, Sudan and Nairobi, Kenya
Website: www.robrooker.com

Rob Rooker has lived in Southern Sudan and Kenya since 2001. He has been painting for the last ten years and has been drawing since he was a young child. He grew up in Texas and worked as a graphic designer until he volunteered as a logistician with a humanitarian agency in Southern Sudan. His inclination is to paint people and faces. He has documented images of Southern Sudan during a difficult political and socio-economic era. He demonstrates the use of shades of monochromatic color and his technique and style are quite unique.

Cards & prints available at Imagekind.com

- - -

UPDATE:  From Sudan Radio Service, Monday, 06 July 2009:
IDP Situation Worsens in Jonglei State
(Bor) – The newly-appointed commissioner of Akobo County says the humanitarian situation of thousands of displaced people in Akobo County in Jonglei state is worsening.

Goy Jock Yol spoke to Sudan Radio Service on Monday by phone from Bor.

[Goy Jock Yol]: “The situation of IDPs in Akobo is really precarious after the fighting between Murle and Lou in March and April. Thousands of people were displaced, mostly to Akobo. And then the attack on the barges in Nasir that happened in May exacerbated the situation and I am thankful that the UN took up the lead in providing food. But we still have a lot of challenges. We need to bring these communities together, although there is still rampant looting of cattle between Jikany and Lou and between Lou and Murle.”

The Commissioner said that the late arrival of the rains has complicated the situation in the area.

[Goy Jock Yol]: “The other thing that is really exacerbating the situation is the delay of the rains. Up to now people have not planted around Akobo and this has resulted in more people with cattle moving toward Sobat and that would answer why we have more Lou population around Nyading River and the Ulang area. But I would like to inform you that the new commissioner of Ulang has started as a good gesture to accommodate the Lou families around that river and I am in constant communication with him to provide security along the corridor so that people live in harmony and peace.”

Yol said that his priority will be to reconcile the neighboring communities.

[Goy Jock Yol]: “I would like to go to Akobo very soon. The first thing I would like to do is to go in and meet the chiefs so that we initiate a low level dialogue between Jikany and Lou. The main issue between them is not mainly cattle rustling but it’s the revenge killings that happened earlier this year. I believe in sitting down and talking about the issues. Then we can open the humanitarian corridor of Sobat so that we get some more food to Akobo. Right now, the community of Akobo is really in need of goods from Ethiopia and Nasir. But also we have realized that these communities were living together once and they have shown that they would like to sit down and talk about these issues.”

The Commissioner said that currently he is lobbying for deployment of more police to Akobo.