bout de papier, Vol. 31, No. 2 (2021), pp. 26–29
BY APRIL 2015, 16 MONTHS after the violent implosion of Juba, South Sudan’s civil war was plumbing new depths. Much of the war thus far had ranged the largely Dinka forces of the governmental army — the SPLA — against Nuer militias allied with the opposition’s Riek Machar. But in oil-rich Unity state, the conflict now took on a confusing Nuer vs Nuer dimension, and the depravity deepened. There were reports of rape camps, of infant girls being defiled, of boys being castrated and left to bleed out — so as to prevent the breeding of future enemies. Civilians were fleeing their villages to take refuge from the violence on islets in the giant swamp of the Sudd. Emergency feeding stations and medical clinics maintained by international relief organizations were not just being looted but burned down, their staff forced to evacuate to the capital. Famine loomed.
I joined a small delegation from the UN’s Humanitarian Country Team, to show the pale blue flag in Unity, meet with the rebel officials who seemed (for now) to be in control, and help decide whether it was safe for the aid agencies to return.
We flew first to Rumbek on one of the UN’s white Dash 7’s, complete with the bilingual French/ English safety announcements that are familiar to Canadian travellers: wherever rugged flying is required, you find Canadian aircraft and crews, and to maintain certification they must follow Canadian law. It had taken days to winkle the necessary flight permits out of reluctant government officials, along with parallel verbal assurances from the rebels that it would be safe to land in their territory.
At Rumbek we transferred to an Mi-8 helicopter and began our cautious progress northwards into Unity, landing first at the village of Ganyiel, then Nyal. One thousand feet below us, as far as we could see, was swampland with small, irregular shaped islands here and there. It was a sunny day with just a few white clouds: the reflections in the water made for a picturesque scene. You could tell which islands were occupied by the white plastic tarps supplied by relief agencies. Once or twice we flew over a man in a dugout, who didn’t even look up.
At Nyal, as was customary whenever an aircraft came in, the helicopter was mobbed by the village children. Esteban, the Argentinian UN official who was leading our small team, had to bat them away in a friendly fashion as he pulled out his Sat Phone to check that we were still cleared for our final destination: Leer. After a short conversation he gave our Ukrainian pilot the thumbs-up. We were on our way again.
We clattered down at Leer at the “terminal,” a rusty old shipping container at one end of a dirt landing-strip, on which some wag had daubed “Leer International Airport.” The main village was at the far end of the landing strip, and there were tukuls — round straw huts — all the way up both sides. The rotors wound down and the pilot came aft to open the door. But as I looked out of my porthole it seemed odd to —— me that no-one had come to greet us.
As the seven of us gathered at the foot of the ladder, Esteban grimaced in puzzlement, pulled out his Iridium again and dialled. He tried several numbers but there was no answer. He shrugged and in his thick Argentine accent said, “Let’s go. Vamonos, chicos.”
There was still no-one to be seen. Some tumbleweed blew across our path. It seemed like a scene from a Western, but there was no background music, just a light breeze rustling the reeds and scrub by the runway. As we walked towards the village, Anne, the country director of MEDAIR, looked worriedly ahead at the closed gate of her own agency; like Esteban, she dialled but there was no answer. Then, over the breeze and from somewhere ahead we heard a few isolated pops; then a pop-pop-pop sequence, noticeably louder.
We paused collectively and Esteban said, unnecessarily:
“I don’t like this.”
More pops. Then there was a cloud of dust approaching us from the village: a four-by-four in tan camouflage colours, with a heavy gun mounted on the back and eight or 10 men crammed in. You could see muzzle flashes from the gun, but they were firing to either side, not ahead. I looked around for cover. There was none. The door of ~~~ the big white helicopter, 300 metres behind us, was now closed and it looked very vulnerable.
The pickup came to an abrupt halt and the men piled out, forming a rough circle around us, firing outwards all the time. The commander was a tall, thin, uniformed man in a black leather cowboy hat, with a whistle on a lanyard round his neck; on his shoulder he wore a patch of the SPLA’s elite Tiger Battalion. He blew his whistle, but to no evident effect; the men looked to be high and didn’t hear him.
Suddenly there was a loud bang and I instinctively ducked. Right beside me, a 16-year-old in a red Manchester United football jersey and flip-flops had loosed off a rocket-propelled grenade; now he was laughing hysterically at my nervous reaction. A khaki-coloured half-track and two more technicals pulled up. It dawned on us that the SPLA — the governmental army — had only minutes earlier re-taken Leer from the rebels.
A civilian with a side-arm pushed his way into the circle, as the men continued randomly to let off bursts of automatic fire in the direction of the silent straw huts on either side. He introduced himself with an ironic smile as the new County Commissioner, “since 10 minutes.” With an inquiring eye on the distant helicopter, he asked who we were. We all politely complied, then he curtly said:
“Come with me.”
Esteban remained very cool.
“T am very sorry sir, but we have a busy schedule today; perhaps some other time?”
The Commissioner looked back speculatively at all of us in turn and for a moment I thought he was going to single me out. The soldiers had stopped shooting now, pausing to listen. Then the Commissioner pulled out a toothpick and chewed on it for a moment. He dismissed us with a wave:
“OK; maybe you should leave now.”
We turned back towards the helicopter; it seemed like a very long walk. The rotors were already turning, but the pilot waited until the last moment before opening the door to let us board again. He was looking ashen; he’d seen the RPG round go off.
As we lifted off, back to Nyal, nobody spoke. Looking down I could see women up to their waists — one up to her neck — wading away from Leer in the swamp, looking for safety. One carried her baby on her head, in a Moses-like cradle of reeds.
We had borne witness. Sometimes that was all you could do.
Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 31, No. 2 (2021), pp. 26–29. Read the rest of this issue →
