During a 7-week visit to Southern Sudan, I interviewed over a dozen Southern Sudanese men and women. Each person offers an intimate view of their lives during the 21-year civil war and since the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005. We get a glimpse into their family lives and their hope for a country with an uncertain future.

Alberto, tells about his education first in a Minor Seminary in Kenya, then in a Major Seminary in Khartoum toward his vocation of becoming a priest. He offers a glimpse into the family structure and community influence of being the son of the 19th wife of an Executive Chief. His hopes for a continued peace are revealed as are his willingness to take up arms should an unjust war return to Sudan.

Interview recorded in within the International Organization for Migration compound in Malualkon, Northern Bahr el Ghazal, Southern Sudan. the street scenes were filmed from the front passenger seat of an IOM vehicle in the town of Aweil. The photographs were taken during various visits to various villages in Northern Bahr el Ghazal in  March 2009.

Special thanks to everyone at the Malualkon office of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and to the villagers in the area who shared their stories with me during my visit.

For other videos from Southern Sudan visit the Video/Audio page.

Here is the transcript of the audio report with a few added photos:

Exactly three weeks ago, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for the President of Sudan, Omar Hassan Al-Bashir, for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Darfur. Like many people in Sudan, I was glued to the television set to view the announcement. It was 4 p.m.

An anonymous blogger who worked for an international aid agency in Darfur wrote on AlertNet, that one hour after the announcement was made, his agency received a phone call. “The Government had revoked our licence and we must close all our programmes. No further explanation. First thing the next day we were told all international staff had to leave Darfur by 4 p.m.” They had to be out of the area exactly 24 hours after the ICC announcement.

According the the UN’s Organization for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 13 International Agencies were expelled:
- Action contre la faim
- Solidarité
- Save the Children (UK & US)
- Medecins Sans Frontières (NL & FR)
- CARE International
- Oxfam (GB)
- Mercy Corps
- International Rescue Committee
- Norwegian Refugee Council
- CHF International
- PADCO
- And three Sudanese relief agencies were also closed.

The International Herald Tribune reported on March 21, that armed men looted Oxfam’s Darfur Warehouse, “stealing all of its contents.” While in Malual Kon, Northern Bahr el-Ghazal State where Mercy Corps has a compound, I learned that all of their equipment from their Darfur and Khartoum operations were seized since their expulsion: computers, communication radios, everything. Since their communication system was centred in Khartoum, they have had to reorganize their communication strategy for their activities in Southern Sudan.

Internews—which is an International NGO affiliated with Mercy Corps—coordinates Nhomlaau FM in Malual Kon. It has three other community radio stations in Southern Sudan. One of these is located in Kurmuk, Blue Nile State, which is within the North/South transitional area. The radio station there was nearly closed along with Mercy Corps, but they managed to continue broadcasting by arguing their independence of the US-based NGO.

I’ve been travelling throughout Southern Sudan for the past four weeks and was recently in Northern Bahr el-Ghazal state, which shares its northern border with Southern Darfur. According to the IRIN News Network, Northern Bahr el-Ghazal is expecting an influx of Internally Displaced People (or IDPs) from Southern Darfur as conditions are expected to deteriorate as a result of the expulsion of the 16 NGOs. Although the report suggests that the UN and the Southern Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Commission are “are preparing for potential inflows of Darfuris,” their arrival will certainly put a strain on the area’s already scarce infrastructure.

IDPs returning to Northern Bahr el_Ghazal in 2007 (courtesy IOM)

Since 2007, there has been a coordinated transport of hundreds of thousands of IDP returnees to Northern Bahr el-Ghazal from Southern Darfur and Khartoum. These people are returning to their homeland after being displaced during Sudan’s other civil war that ended with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005. Many are returning to rural locations without access to sanitation, safe drinking water, clinics or schools.

According to the International Organization for Migration (or IOM), many villages in the area have had a rate of IDP Returnees as high as 80-90% of their pre-2007 population. 2007 is the year when organized returns of Internally displaced people began in earnest with the help of IOM and the government of Southern Sudan.

waterhole in War Faj, Northern Bahr el-Ghazal

Access to safe drinking water is already in short supply throughout the state for those already living there. The influx of Darfuris could cause serious tensions at existing water sources and could lead to localized conflict. Waterborne infectious diseases, like cholera and meningitis, could become a serious problem.

To make matters worse, the rainy season is approaching. By the end of April, road travel will be become difficult and delivery of goods will be seriously impaired. Rain is a serious matter in Northern Bahr el-Ghazal and neighbouring states. During the 2008 rainy season the state experienced serious flooding. During my time in the area, I’ve driven past remnants of nearly half a dozen temporary camps where thousands were displaced to during last year’s flooding.

Flood Map of Northern Bahr el-Ghazal and Warrap States (courtesy UNJLC, Juba)

A March 1, 2009 report from the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, writes, “The potential movement of 1.5 million displaced Darfur residents into Southern Sudan’s Northern and Western Bahr el-Ghazal states, due to disruptions in humanitarian assistance, presents a severe threat to food security in the two states.”

During a visit to Darfur four days after the ICC arrest warrant was issued President Al-Bashir said that his decision to expel the 16 NGOs from Darfur was “irreversible.” The position of the Khartoum government has not changed since, although they have vowed to replace the international NGOs with Sudanese agencies and end the need for aid in Darfur within the year. No clear solution is in sight.

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An interesting article about Fallout Scenarios as a result of the expulsion of 16 NGOs from Darfur can be found here.

I make my way from inside my canvas tent on the Save the Children (UK) compound, and walk the narrow cement sidewalks past the tents and tukuls of others toward the washrooms and the outhouses at the far end of the compound. From a metal drum half-filled with water, I scoop water into a wash basin and carry it to one of the three washrooms. There is no running water here nor anywhere in Malual Kon. More than half of the population of the town has returned here since 2007. The war has been over for four years and their exile in northern areas of Sudan—or in neighbouring countries—has ended with their return to their homeland. Since I arrived last week, my time is spent visiting various villages and speaking with villagers about the situation they live in as recent returnees in a severely underdeveloped part of Sudan.

After my wash, I return to the tent, gather my things and leave the compound through the front gate that faces the Malual Kon’s airstrip. Staight ahead, across the runway, are three immense World Food Program (WFP) warehouse tents. A dozen men have already started to unload the first of six trucks filled with essential foodstuff (sugar, salt, oil, flour, rice, etc) that arrived yesterday. This is most often provided in Work for Food programs that encourage villagers to work on projects like digging wells and making bricks for the benefit of the community.

I walk toward the roundabout and turn right along an unnamed road toward the International Organization for Migration (IOM) Compound. Today, like every day since I arrived, I will visit a village or two that receives CIDA-funded livelihood or infrastructure support from IOM. The communities in these villages are highly impacted by the return of an overwhelming ratio of Internally Displaced People (IDPs) who’ve come from the north of Sudan.

These communities (I’ve already visited seven villages) are in need of basic infrastructure like safe drinking water from nearby wells or boreholes. Like primary and secondary schools. Like vocational training and a means of earning an income. Like access to medical services in nearby clinics. Every village I visit needs most of these things. All of the villages need more sources of potable water.

Today, I get into the front passenger seat of the IOM truck with the capital letters ‘U’ and ‘N’ on the from hood and a blue IOM flag waving from the CB antenna bolted onto the front bumper. Deng Mareng Deng, IOM’s community mobilizer, and my interpreter, gets into the back seat and we drive out of the compound, past the airstrip, around the WFP warehouses and head north to the village of War Faj.

War Faj is the first village I visit in Northern Bahr el-Ghazal toward the border with Southern Darfur. It is remote and deep in the bush along back roads barely larger then the land cruiser we are driving in. Goats scurry out of the way as we drive past and herds of cattle barely glance at our passing.

A few villagers greet us under the tree in the central area as we drive in. The largest tree in any village is always the central meeting place where the most amount of people can gather in the shade. We greet with handshakes and are are directed to seats under the tree. More than 80% of the villagers here have returned from the north of Sudan in the past two years, putting pressure on the water resources that were already direly lacking.

From under the tree, we sit while other villagers arrive and settle along the circumference of the shade. They bring chairs from nearby tukuls or stand among the others. the children sit on the ground. We begin with introductions and spokespeople are chosen. Each one comes up and tells me their story: where they have

returned from their wartime displacement; what is the water situation in the village; that there are not more women present because most of them have walked miles away to a nearby village that has a borehole to collect their family’s water needs for the day; that they would offer us water but they haven’t any even for themselves; the list goes on with each intervention. Five people speak in total; three men and two women.

The last speaker is a woman who invites us to the village’s only water source: a large hole in the ground with a trickle of brackish water that gathers into a small pool. It takes thirty seconds to one hour to fill one plastic gerry can. And the water is not clean. It causes waterborne diseases like Giardia, Cholera, Dysentery and others. IOM has War Faj on their list of recipients of a borehole pump. The villagers could not imagine it arriving soon enough.