At first sight, the village of Rokwe on the outskirts of Juba looks like any other village in South Sudan. The sun shines bright on the grass roofs of the mud huts and sounds from a church choir practising can be heard in the distance. Only the scenery at the local health centre gives away that this is no ordinary place.

After a lifetime of struggle, Laurence Modi hopes to improve his home and one day start a family. Credit: Simon Murphy

Dozens of patients seek shelter from the sun on the concrete veranda. Many have more than one disfigured limb. Some are able to move around, others struggle to walk. Rokwe is a colony for leprosy patients.

Erkolan Onyara was only 13 when he discovered a few sore spots on his legs. He did not know what they were, and when more painful spotting appeared all over his body, he showed his mother. Recognising the symptoms from her own illness, she got very upset. Erkolan – just like her – had leprosy.

Soon, he lost sensation in the affected skin areas and the wounds started to get infected. By the time his illness got worse, his mother had passed away.

Not knowing how they could care for Erkolan, the family heard of a village where people with leprosy were taken care of by a group of church brothers. Erkolan’s elder brother brought him to Rokwe in 1976 and the St Martin De Porres Brothers accepted him in the colony.

Erkolan remembers his first months in the village like it was yesterday. “I was all alone and I felt scared. I did not know anyone and I did not know what was happening to my body. It was a difficult time for me.”

Like many leprosy sufferers, Erkolan was losing sensation in his hands and feet, leading him to often cut himself or injure his feet while walking. When he was 19 years old, disaster struck. “I was cooking dinner and tried to grab a pot that was on the fire. I did not feel the heat and both my hands burnt very badly. I lost my fingers and part of my hands.”

Life as a young boy in the colony was a struggle for Erkolan. With the help of some of the Brothers he had built a small tukul (mud hut), but as a boy alone he had trouble feeding himself.

“I could not work because of my disfigurement. I went fishing in the Nile sometimes or tried to grow some crops to eat, but often I was hungry.” One of the Sisters from a nearby parish used to visit Erkolan and help him with basics like cooking and laundry.

The small health centre the Brothers ran from within the colony was chronically under-resourced. The ongoing war made the supply of medicine unstable. Still, they were determined to treat the village’s patients and cure them of their leprosy. Erkolan was cured in 1986, but the disease had taken its toll on the young man’s body: his hands were badly disfigured and he missed several toes, causing him instability when walking.

The medical breakthrough in the battle against leprosy came in 1981, when a World Health Organization Study Group on Chemotherapy of Leprosy prescribed the use of a multidrug therapy (MDT) as the standard treatment for the disease.

Despite being cured of leprosy, most of the patients stayed on in the village. Their often severe disabilities made life in one of the poorest regions in the world even harder for them than for most other people. And in the middle of the brutal civil war, the colony to many felt like the safest place to stay.

Brother Bruno Dada has been working in the colony for the past 23 years. He says fighting did happen around the village over the years, especially since the army built military barracks very close to the colony.

However, the stigma against leprosy has in some way protected the 350-strong village from the violent raids many other places in the area endured. Soldiers used to ignore the village because they believed there was nothing there to plunder. They were also afraid to enter the colony as they believed they would catch the disease.

As Brother Bruno puts it: “There is a stigma. People think that they will get leprosy if they shake hands with a patient, whereas in fact, it is impossible to get infected that way. Even if patients’ leprosy has been cured years ago, many people are still afraid to go near them.”

Despite the preconceptions, many leprosy patients in Rokwe lived in fear throughout the war. Erkolan expresses the anxiety that was felt by many villagers: “We were always afraid because we knew we were vulnerable. If any fighting did break out, we could not defend ourselves.”

Erkolan married a woman from the village and they still live in the hut he built when he arrived as a young boy. He is the proud father of three boys and three girls, the oldest of whom is now married and has moved away.

If Erkolan could make one miracle happen, it would be for his oldest daughter to finish her education. “We struggled badly for money and had to take her out of school”, he says. “She was a very good student but we just could not provide. We had to send her to get married so that her husband’s family could look after her. I still feel bad about that now.”

A recent gift from an uncle has improved life slightly for Erdokan’s family. He was given an old bicycle, which he uses to go to the forest and collect firewood to sell. “Cycling for me is easier than walking. I can carry the wood on the bike to the roadside. I don’t sell a lot but sometimes I get a few (Sudanese) pounds.”

Whilst most South Sudanese are hopeful about the future of their country, independent since July, Erkolan can’t help but be sceptical. “There has been no development here for so long. No government cares for us. I hope things will change but we will have to wait and see.”

According to the WHO there has been a dramatic decrease in leprosy cases in the past decades – from 5.2 million cases worldwide in 1985 to 805,000 in 1995 and 213,036 cases at the end of 2008. However, more than 200,000 new cases are still reported each year, mostly in poverty-stricken places like Sudan.

In Rokwe, the lack of government support for the leprosy patients and their families has to some extent been compensated by the work of international aid organisations.

During the war, the World Food Programme and a charity group supplied meals in the colony. Although occasional new cases of leprosy still emerge, the disease is largely under control in the region, thanks to a widespread treatment campaign which cures patients fast and stops spread of the disease.

But for people like Erkolan and others in the leper colony, the treatment came too late. Their illness might be under control, but the damage to their limbs cannot be undone.

The Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund (SCIAF), with the assistance of Sudanaid, supports some of the poorest sufferers and their families. They provided them with non-food items including 481 mosquito nets, 400 cooking pans, 400 sleeping mats, 400 blankets and 400 jerry cans for fetching water.

SCIAF is currently working on a new project with the Brothers to provide income-generating opportunities for residents and to set up a vocational training centre. They also help improve the housing situation for villagers in most urgent need of a new tukul or repairs to stop leaking in the rainy season.

One of the beneficiaries of the house repair scheme is Laurence Modi, 24. His life story – like that of so many in southern Sudan – is intensely sad. He was brought to the colony in the late 1980s by relatives.

Just a toddler, his small body was full of painful wounds that were the starting point of a childhood full of suffering. Both his parents had passed away, and tiny Laurence was dropped in the colony together with his sister, who was barely a teenager. The children moved into an abandoned mud hut and were left to their own devices.

Laurence received treatment from the Brothers to stop his leprosy, but his hands and feet were so badly affected that the simplest tasks like making a fire or digging the ground to cultivate land became impossible. He relied on his sister, who played the role of a mother, despite being only a child herself.

When in 2004 she left the village to get married, Laurence’s small world fell apart. “She was all I had,” he says, fighting back tears as he speaks. “I was really sad when she left.”

Lonely in his tukul, he started worrying about his future. A neighbour had begun to cook him food every day and help him out with household tasks, but he knew this could not go on forever. The grass roof of his tukul was leaking and at night during the rainy season, he often woke up because of the water dripping down inside. He suffered bouts of depression and saw no way out of his problems.

Early this year, one of the Brothers informed Laurence that he had been put on a list for a new roof. “I thought I was dreaming. I worried so much about the house. I was afraid I would have to go and find shelter at other people’s huts. I built this hut with my sister in 2000, we did it all by ourselves. It means a lot to me to live here.”

The prospect of an improved house has given Laurence reason to look towards the future again. When the sun sets over Rokwe each night, Laurence sits in front of his hut and takes a moment to himself. He often dreams of the day he will no longer be by himself. “I would love to find a girlfriend and marry and have children. That is natural. My dream is to improve the house and start a family here.”

* Published under an agreement with Street News Service.

In their hundreds of thousands they have crossed the border, arriving by boat, bus or on foot. After decades of civil war with the north, South Sudanese have come back home to witness the birth of their new nation on Jul. 9. The fight for independence has come to an end, but for many returnees, the struggle is far from over.

Pregnant and with three small children, Sabia Leot, who hasn't found her husband, has no idea what the future in South Sudan will hold. Credit: Simon Murphy/SNS

On the western outskirts of the South Sudanese capital of Juba some two dozen people have gathered in the local chief’s compound. It is a very hot day, the sun is unforgiving and people crowd around the one big tree in the yard to get some shade. Plastic chairs are brought in for the men, while most of the women and children sit down on a large, woven mat on the floor.

They come together regularly, to support each other and discuss their future. Some came back months ago, others have just arrived. Wherever they have come from, one thing is the same for all of them: they have to rebuild their lives.

Even before the referendum in January, in which 99.7 percent of Christian and animist southerners voted for separation from the Islamic north, hundreds of families came back to the south each day. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed in 2005 by the Khartoum government and the southern forces of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) had convinced many that freedom was near.

Decades of bloody civil war cost two million lives and left millions more displaced. With the signing of the CPA, the desire to go back to the land they fled became too strong to ignore for many.

Recognising the huge logistical task ahead, the U.N. refugee agency set up a support system for South Sudanese wishing to return home. Registration offices were opened and ships, trucks and buses put in place to move people and luggage.

At the receiving end, in Juba and other towns across the south, a massive emergency programme was rolled out by the World Food Programme and other non-government organisations to supply returnees with basic items like food, cooking utensils and soap.

Many of the early returnees belonged to families who had been away for decades. Like Richard Luka, 32, who came back in 2006. His father had left Juba in the 1970s as a bachelor, to find work in the northern capital Khartoum. He got married and had children, whom he managed to send to school with money he earned as a tailor. When the second civil war broke out in 1983 he lost hope that his offspring would ever be able to see their homeland.

For young Richard, life in the north was marked by the desire for a place he had never seen. Growing up in Khartoum, he lived between two worlds. In school, he spoke Arabic like the other children and tried to blend in. At home, the family spoke their mother tongue, Bari, to keep their southern spirit alive.

“My parents used to tell us all about Juba,” says Luka. “Whenever they saw it on television, they would call us over. It looked so beautiful to me. My dream was always to go back there. I knew it was my home.”

In 1995, there was intense fighting in the area around Juba. Images of soldiers in battle were shown on the military programme the family always watched on TV. Seeing his home town being attacked sparked a form of patriotism inside Luka that he had not felt so strongly before. “Me and my brother said to my father: Dad, can we go fight? But he refused to let us go. He said: Finish school first. Then you can go and fight for your country.”

When SPLM leader John Garang died in a helicopter crash in 2005 – just months after the peace agreement – the mood in the Luka household became tense. “We were worried. We had a chief who looked after us, but who would protect the south now that he was dead?”

In the following months, Luka’s father prepared his family to return to their home land. After a three-week wait in the harbour town of Kosti, they were allowed to board a U.N.-chartered steamship that would take them to Juba. Luka remembers the departure vividly: “As soon as we got on board and left the harbour, all of us went on deck and waved. We sang: ‘Bye, bye, Arabs, we leave you now’. We were so happy it was finally happening.”

The journey took one month. The ship was crowded and mosquitoes pestered the passengers on board. The U.N. had put people from different tribes together, which caused unrest at first. But soon, they started to interact. “We all had the same experiences, so we shared them,” Luka recalls. “By the time we arrived in Juba, we were like a big family.”

Life back in the south has not been easy for the Lukas. After three decades away, the family has had to start all over again and help to pick up the pieces of their destroyed country. Luka’s father struggles to make ends meet as a tailor and Luka’s work as a small farmer barely brings in enough to feed his family. He met his wife Nora Joan in Juba and married her soon after. She is nine months pregnant and about to deliver the couple’s first child.

“It gives me sleepless nights thinking about how we will cope when the baby is born. How will I feed three if I already struggle to feed two? It worries me a lot.” Luka’s dream is to finish his university degree, which he started in Khartoum but abandoned because of financial constraints. He knows he is capable of doing it, but the costs and the responsibility for his new family hold him back.

With independence now around the corner, Luka’s views on the future of his country are clear. “Our politicians need to make their promises a reality. We need quick development on all fronts- education, food supply and jobs for the poor, so that my child won’t have to struggle like I have struggled.”

Luka’s baby will be one of the first children of the new Republic of South Sudan. When asked how he feels about the fact that his first child will be born on South Sudanese ground, his eyes light up: “It is very special. I will be the proudest father in the world.” He has already decided on the baby’s name. He or she will be called Hora – the Juba-Arabic for Freedom.

Following the ‘yes’ vote for independence in January, the government of Southern Sudan called upon its remaining exiled citizens to come home and help rebuild their nation. As an incentive, it promised each returning family a piece of land.

Although plans are being put in place to deal with the assignment of allotments, most returnees are still officially homeless. Some have tried to get back to their family farms, but after years or even decades away, most land is now occupied by others and claiming ancestry without paperwork often proves difficult, if not impossible.

The number of returnees continues to grow, with many more expected to come back after Jul. 9, the date set for South Sudan to become an independent state.

According to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), over 300,000 people have returned to the south in the past seven months alone. From November 2010 to June 2011, just over 140,000 returnees came back with support from the southern government and the U.N. The other half made the journey back themselves.

Despite support from the international community, the influx of returnees is putting enormous pressure on the nation-to-be. In a country where nine out of 10 people live on less than a dollar a day, according to U.N. statistics, shortages of food, drinking water, sanitation and health care are already huge.

The infrastructure to meet the increasing demands is fragile. The new Republic of South Sudan covers 650,000 square kilometres – bigger than the United Kingdom and Germany combined – yet there are only 30 miles of paved roads.

In Western Juba, Agnes Wosuk from the Catholic international aid collective Caritas updates her list of new arrivals. Together with local charities Sudanaid and Catholic Relief Services, she works to provide humanitarian assistance to 100,000 people in most urgent need of shelter, food and sanitation.

Not all people she speaks to today are returnees from the north. Many have also fled to Juba as a result of the ongoing tribal conflicts within the south. IOM estimates that from January 2007 to July 2010, more than half of four million people displaced from or within Sudan have returned to their places of origin. Despite this, Sudan is still the country with the highest number of internally displaced people in the world.

Sabia Leot, 21, is one of these people. Orphaned at age seven, she grew up with an aunt in a small village near the southern town of Yei. The family arranged her marriage to an SPLA soldier when she was fourteen years old. He was based in Juba, where Leot gave birth to their first baby, a boy, in 2005. Two years later she had her second child, this time a girl, followed by another girl in 2008.

Soon after that, Leot’s husband was transferred to an army base in the town of Bantu and the family moved with him. Life was peaceful for a while, until violence broke out at the end of last year. An ongoing dispute between two local tribes had escalated and armed conflict caused chaos in the area. Leot was three months pregnant with her fourth child.

On Dec. 18 Leot’s husband decided that it was time for his wife and children to flee the area. By now, the army was involved in the conflict and fighting had intensified. He gave her some money and a cell phone and told her to take the children to Juba.

“As soon as I rented a small room for me and the children to live in, I rang him,” recalls Leot. “He said not to worry and that he would send us money every month, until it was safe for us to come back. He told me to look after the children and phone him if there were any problems. I thought we were going to be fine.”

Trouble started after the first month, when Leot did not receive any money. She tried to phone her husband, but the phone number she had used earlier did not work any more. She asked her landlord to be patient, as she believed the money would arrive any day. After two weeks, the house owner had had enough and told the family to leave.

Pregnant and with three small children, Leot was sent onto the streets, carrying nothing but the few belongings she brought. With no family to go back to and no money to feed her children, she has been wondering around the plots of land in Western Juba ever since.

She has found a few old relatives, who sometimes offer her shelter and food for a few nights. When she feels like she has outstayed her welcome, she takes the children by the hand and moves on. “The eldest ones keep asking me why we can’t go back to our rented room. I tell them: ‘That room is not our home. Our home is with Daddy.’ It is hard for them to understand.”

Leot has been homeless for five months now, and the situation is getting more pressing each day. The start of the rainy season has made matters worse.

“When it is dry, we sleep under a tree. But when the rains come, we have to run and hope someone will give us shelter for the night. During the day, I go around to people’s houses and ask if I can do small jobs for them. It is getting harder because my belly has grown so much. Sometimes they give me some food or a few (Sudanese) pounds. But often, we go hungry. I say to the little ones: ‘Don’t worry, let us sleep. Tomorrow, we will eat.”

Since that one phone call upon her arrival in Juba, Leot has not heard from her husband. She says it is unlike him not to contact her. “I pray every day that no one will come and bring me bad news.”

Some nights, when the children are asleep, Leot thinks about taking her own life. With the pregnancy coming to an end, she worries about the health of her family and unborn baby. In a country were one in seven pregnant women die of complications, the dangers are horribly real.

She holds her baby bump as she speaks: “I can’t think about what is happening to me. I don’t know where I will deliver my child and how we will cope. I try not to think at all. Every night, I thank God that another day has passed.”

* Published under an agreement with Street News Service.

From across the border, they anxiously watch the drama unfold. As their home land of South Sudan prepares itself to split from the Islamic north, fighting continues across the disputed oil-rich areas. During the decades of civil war, almost 400,000 refugees dreamt of the day independence would come. But now it is finally there, many are not ready to go home.

Brothers James and Peter Mabior lost each other during the war, reunited in Nairobi and went back to South Sudan together to vote for independence. Credit: Danielle Batist/SNS

Jacob Meltong was a teenager when he entered Kakuma Refugee Camp in northwest Kenya in 2005. The journey from Aweil in the South Sudanese state of Northern Bahr el Ghazal was long and dangerous.

Although the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between North and South Sudan had been signed just months earlier, tensions were still high and many of the roads were scattered with landmines. After days on the road, Jacob had arrived in a foreign country where his parents hoped he would escape the aftermath of the war and get an education. He was hungry, tired, and alone.

He joined almost 50,000 other refugees, many of whom had fled the brutal South Sudanese civil war over the years. Since its establishment in 1992, the camp has expanded to serve refugees from other neighbouring countries like Somalia and Ethiopia.

Although the Meltong family had suffered during the war, fleeing abroad for them was not an option. Only after the signing of the CPA did Jacob’s father consider it safe enough for his son to make the journey south. The parents stayed behind to look after the younger children and elderly relatives.

According to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM)’s 2011 report ‘Migration in Sudan’ between 1.2 and 1.7 million Sudanese fled abroad during the decades of war. Despite the large number of returns following the signing of the peace agreement, 390,000 Sudanese refugees are still living in camps or urban settings in neighbouring countries, in particular Egypt, Chad, Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia.

Life in the camp was tough for Jacob. He struggled for a year -without any opportunities for schooling or work- before he decided to make the jump and try his luck in Nairobi. He managed to trace down an uncle, who let him stay and helped him to scrape together some money for school fees. Like many South Sudanese, Jacob only started his education as an adult. He is currently in fourth form and is awaiting the results of his final exams.

Together with over 15,000 fellow South Sudanese in Kenya, Jacob made his way to the official Out of Country Voting Centre in January. Crossing the box for separation on the ballot paper was a moment he will never forget. “All these years we have been waiting for this. My family back home and everybody here is waiting for the 9th of July, it is all that is on our minds.”

Lost

For James Mabior, 24, Kenya was a safe haven during the last leg of the civil war that ruined his childhood. When fighting became too intense, the family split up and went different ways for safety. James fled across the border to Kakuma. He had told his younger brother Peter to try and flee to the camp as well, but he did not arrive.

James had no way of contacting his brother and thought he might not have survived. Worried, he travelled to Nairobi, where a large community of South Sudanese from his home town had settled in the slums. No one had seen his brother and James received no news in the months following his arrival.

That is – until last year, when a new arrival from Kakuma bumped into James on the street. “He said to me: ‘Hey, are you James? Your brother is looking for you, he is in Kakuma.’ I could not believe it. I didn’t think I would see him again.” Weeks later, the brothers were reunited in Nairobi. They managed to get through to their mother on the phone. She was so overwhelmed that she could not speak.

In early January, James and Peter packed their few belongings and made the journey back home. Peter was amazed at what he saw. When he left South Sudan as a child, the war dominated everything. “There was no tarmac, no food, no buildings. Now, we could see people building. The referendum was very well organised, everything seemed so stable and peaceful. It was amazing to see that together with my brother.”

After meeting their family, James and Peter made their way to the polling station to vote. James’ eyes light up when he recalls the moment: “It was the best day in my life. Next to my people, I felt very strong. We all want independence. We said it to each other as we stood in line: our children will not suffer like we did.”

However hopeful they felt the day they voted, the Mabior brothers soon realised their chances in Kenya are better than in South Sudan. James is currently enrolled in college and Peter is finishing form 3. Their parents have urged them to stay in Kenya until they get their qualifications. It broke Peter’s heart to leave his country for the second time, but deep down he knew his family was right.

“My plan is to get teaching qualifications here and then go back. I want to help to build South Sudan. I know some people don’t want to leave their new lives, but I think that is wrong. All of us who left, whether they are in the U.S., Uganda or Kenya, should come back. Our country needs us.”

Violence

The anxiety to return felt by many exiled South Sudanese is not helped by the recent violence in the country. The peaceful referendum leading up to independence was no predictor for the conflict that has started again in the past weeks.

According to the United Nations, more than 360,000 people have been displaced in Sudan over the past six months, and more than half were displaced in the past month alone. The heaviest fighting has been concentrated in the three oil-rich border areas that have been disputed ever since the signing of the north/south peace agreement in 2005: Abyei, Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan.

Across the border states, the northern government has deployed its SAF armed forces. Abyei was a key battleground during the civil war and both sides see it as a symbolic emblem. Most of its citizens want to be part of the south, but they were excluded from voting in the January referendum.

Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir recently threatened to block a pipeline that exports oil from the south to the harbour in the north. The soon to-be autonomous south relies on oil for 99 per cent of its revenues but is dependent on a pipeline in the north for export.

Khartoum demands that the south continues to share revenues or pays a transit fee on every barrel they export. South Sudan currently splits oil revenues equally with the north – despite producing 80 per cent of output. Abyei is the source of 75 per cent of the country’s 500,000 barrels a day oil production.

Aid workers in Southern Kordofan in the meantime report ethnically targeted attacks, which are largely directed at the African peoples of the Nuba Mountains. Eyewitnesses from local churches and charity groups report intensifying violence and warn of a “new Darfur,” when more than 200,000 people in western Sudan were systematically killed by Khartoum’s forces and at least two million made homeless. As many as 75,000 people have fled the fighting in Southern Kordofan. The U.N. reports that “the security situation continues to deteriorate”.

The violence broke out in early June when the government started to disarm rebels. Although the province will remain part of the north, it is home to many pro-south communities, especially in the Nuba Mountains, some of whom fought with SPLA rebels during the war.

Now they find themselves on the wrong side of the border from former comrades, and have resisted surrendering weapons to the northern forces they see as hostile. Khartoum has said it will not tolerate the existence of two armies within its borders. Nuba activists emphasise this is not a north-south conflict but a battle to protect basic rights and their way of life.

Khartoum banks on the fact that the south is reluctant to challenge the north’s mightier army and risk a war that could threaten independence. This strategy has angered the international community, who are soon to decide on the north’s 38 billion dollars in debt relief.

U.N. peacekeepers in Sudan have been criticised for a lack of response to the recent violence. International aid organisations struggle to get access to the conflict zones. US President Barack Obama urged an immediate ceasefire, but so far, the fighting continues across the border areas.

Back in Nairobi, Jacob Meltong believes that independence will eventually bring longed-for change and development to the country. At the same time he acknowledges there is an enormous job to be done. “People want no more war. What we need are opportunities for work and for schooling.”

He well knows that these opportunities currently are far greater in Kenya and Uganda, where some of his siblings have been stranded, than back in South Sudan. Depending on funding possibilities, he says he might try to get into a college in Nairobi. But -like the Mabior brothers- he says South Sudan will be his end station either way: “I will go back. Home is home.”

* Published under an agreement with Street News Service.