A Murle child victim of the late December, early January attacks being treated in a hospital in Juba. Jared Ferie/IPS

By Jared Ferrie
YUAI, South Sudan, Oct 31 2012 (IPS)

The huge Russian-made helicopter descended slowly towards conical mud huts clustered together and surrounded by endless grassland, lush and green with the season’s rains here in the South Sudanese village of Yuai.

The scene is tranquil now, but less than a year ago this was a community caught up in ethnic conflict that engulfed Jonglei state and saw thousands of people murdered.

Villagers of Yuai gathered at this dirt airstrip on Oct. 26 to welcome members of a committee tasked by South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir with bringing peace to the violence-wracked state.

At least 1,600 people died in 2011 in fighting between the Murle and Lou Nuer ethnic groups, according to the United Nations. Clashes continued into February, killing another 400 people. 

“The president asked me and other colleagues to bring peace to greater Jonglei as a whole, because at the time Jonglei was almost breaking apart. We were eating ourselves, Nuer, Dinka, Murle,” committee head Daniel Deng, who is the archbishop of the Episcopal Church of Sudan and South Sudan, told community leaders in Yuai.

In the wake of the violence, the government launched a peace process as well as a state-wide programme to disarm civilians in March.

The disarmament campaign has been plagued by allegations of abuse by government soldiers, but peace has largely held between the ethnic groups, whose leaders signed a reconciliation agreement in May.

That fragile peace is now being threatened by the emergence of a new anti-government militia led by David Yau Yau, and analysts and officials warn the rebels could spark renewed ethnic conflict in Jonglei.

“We hope that the government has the upper hand, they will control this rebellion,” Deng told IPS.

“If the government manages to control David Yau Yau, then I think the civilians will be happy and the peace will continue.”

The South Sudanese government blames its former civil war foe, Sudan, for arming Yau Yau – a charge Sudanese officials deny. But abuses during disarmament perpetrated by its own army, which is known as the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), have also contributed to the militia’s gathering strength, according to a report released on Wednesday Oct. 31 by Small Arms Survey, a Geneva-based research institution.

“Soldiers conducting the campaign have committed rapes, torture, and killings—mostly against Murle communities—deepening Murle distrust of the SPLA,” according to the report entitled “My Neighbour, My Enemy: Inter-tribal Violence In Jonglei”.

Jonah Leff, the report’s author, told IPS that Yau Yau has “been able to recruit Murle youth by exploiting their grievances over SPLA misconduct during the disarmament programme.” He added that Lou Nuer youth have begun to rearm in case of attacks by Murle youth who have been provided with weapons by Yau Yau.

Deng said he was worried that Yau Yau could destroy the peace between tribes if the SPLA was unable to prevent his forces from attacking other ethnic communities.

Such a damaging pattern may have already begun.

Peacekeepers patrol the South Sudanese village of Yuai earlier this year, before the rains. Credit: Jared Ferrie/IPS

In an interview in Yuai, capital of Uror County, the county commissioner, Simon Duoth, said rebel fighters attacked a family in neighbouring Akobo County on Oct. 25.

Both counties are part of the traditional homeland of the Lou Nuer.

Previously, Yau Yau’s forces primarily targeted SPLA posts in Pibor County, which is home to the Murle. At least 100 soldiers have been killed since Aug. 22, according to Small Arms Survey, which estimates that the militia now numbers 3,000 fighters.

If the pattern of abuse of Murle civilians by soldiers continues, that number could grow.

Small Arms Survey said in the report that soldiers have even “beaten and detained civilians trying to bring violations to their attention.” The group said the attitude towards disarmament in Lou Nuer areas has been more positive, with people reporting that soldiers have returned stolen cattle and escorted farmers to their fields.

“The Murle, on the other hand, report that the SPLA have offered little or no protection, and in some cases have stolen their farming tools,” says the report. “For many Murle, the principal enemy is no longer the Lou Nuer but the SPLA.”

Colonel Kella Dual Kueth, an army spokesman, denied that soldiers were committing abuses. Other government officials have blamed individual soldiers, denying that there is a pattern of abuse against Murle civilians.

Deng echoed those statements: “It is not the policy; it is some soldiers who might have gone astray.

“So it cannot be considered that it is the SPLA. It is those who are not respecting the law and already the SPLA has taken measures against them,” he said.

But organisations including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have documented widespread abuses in Pibor that include rape, beatings and torture. In an Aug. 23 statement, HRW said “authorities have not taken sufficient steps to curb the violations or hold abusive soldiers accountable.”

Small Arms Survey noted that between March and September the United Nations peacekeeping mission (UNMISS) had made only one public statement about “apparent human rights violations” taking place as part of disarmament campaign ordered by the ruling party, the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement (SPLM).

“UNMISS has failed to carry out its mandate to protect civilians in the face of widespread SPLA abuses, and has not sufficiently taken up the matter with the SPLM or SPLA leadership in Juba,” the report said.

Kouider Zerrouk, a spokesman for the mission, denied the charges.

“On the contrary, UNMISS has raised its concerns with the SPLA, calling for the abuses in Pibor County to be stemmed,” he told IPS.

“UNMISS recognises that some steps have been taken to strengthen investigations, with some arrests in recent rape cases and some older cases going to trial.”

Refugees dig for water in a dried up watering hole in Jamam camp, in South Sudan's Upper Nile state. Credit: Jared Ferrie/IPS

By Jared Ferrie
JUBA, Jun 14 2012 (IPS)

Sudanese refugees have started dying as a camp in South Sudan ran out of water four days ago after a massive influx of people fled across the border to escape war and hunger.

The refugees are fleeing Sudan’s Blue Nile state where insurgents are fighting to overthrow the Sudanese government.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said earlier in an April report that civilians are suffering from an indiscriminate aerial bombing campaign.

Voitek Asztabski, an emergency coordinator with Medicines Sans Frontiers (MSF), said some refugees died as they walked seven to 10 hours to a new site in search of water after camp Kilometer 48 in South Sudan’s Upper Nile state ran out of it on Jun 11.

The agency is still carrying out a mortality survey to find out how many adults and children have died and what the causes are. However, MSF estimates that an average of five to 10 people have died each day since water ran out at the Kilometer 48 camp.

MSF said in a statement on Jun. 13 that “the 15,000 refugees remaining at this location walked en masse the 25 km to the nearest location with available water.”

Heavy rains prevented agencies from moving them by truck on flooded roads.

“We observed people dying of thirst, of dehydration,” Asztabski said by satellite phone from camp Kilometer 18, the new site with limited available water. “That was quite a horrifying activity being witnessed by us here.”

Some people were too weak to respond to medical care.

“We went early on Tuesday morning to provide medical assistance and rehydration points along the route,” said MSF’s Dr. Erna Rijnierse in the statement.

“It was a truly shocking sight as we witnessed some of the weakest dying as they walked – too dehydrated for even the most urgent medical care to save them.”

There are now 105,000 Sudanese refugees from Blue Nile state in South Sudan’s Upper Nile state, according the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, while another 15,000 are on their way.

Asztabski said that refugees are arriving malnourished, dehydrated and diseased after walking from their homes in Blue Nile. Common conditions include pneumonia and other respiratory infections contracted from sleeping outdoors without any shelter, as well as diarrhoea from drinking contaminated water.

He called for a “proactive” approach to the crisis, saying that agencies have instead been reacting to the emergency without putting contingency plans in place. For example, there is no plan for what to do after water runs out at camp Kilometer 18, which will likely happen in about two and a half weeks.

Aid agencies have been warning for months that refugees needed to be relocated before potable water ran out and the rainy season began, making transport extremely difficult. In March, Andrew Omale, an emergency coordinator with Oxfam International, told IPS that the refugee situation in Upper Nile was a “forgotten emergency” and called for more support.

Asztabski said agencies continue to be hampered by a lack of capacity and resources. He compared the scale of the crisis to an area in Ethiopia where he was based last year when famine in Somalia sent refugees over the border into that country as well as Kenya. About 10 million people were affected by the drought in the Horn of Africa. But he said there are fewer resources available for this emergency.

“Everyone is overstretched in this situation,” said Asztabski. “This crisis needs more attention, more investment.”

The refugees began streaming from Blue Nile into South Sudan and Ethiopia in early September after Sudan ousted Blue Nile’s elected state governor, Malik Agar, and replaced him with a military appointee. Agar’s forces have been fighting the government since then, and HRW says civilians have borne the brunt of military abuses.

In its April report, HRW documented reported violations against civilians including arbitrary detention, extrajudicial killings, beatings and torture. HRW said government forces targeted people they suspected of connections to the group led by Agar, which is known as the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N).

The SPLM-N is active in Blue Nile as well as neighbouring Southern Kordofan state, where the U.N. says 47,000 refugees have fled across the border into South Sudan’s Unity state.

The rebels were formerly part of the SPLM, which fought a two-decade civil war against Khartoum that resulted in South Sudan’s secession. When the South declared independence last July, the SPLM in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile added “North” to their name and declared themselves a separate political party in Sudan. But the SPLM-N took up arms again after accusing Khartoum of cracking down on them.

Sudan has repeatedly denied targeting civilians during its fight against the SPLM-N. But rights groups as well as the British and United States governments have called on Khartoum to stop bombing civilians.

Asztabski said refugees also tell of fleeing the bombing with very few possessions and having to walk for as many as two months to reach the border. “They are telling us horrific stories,” he said. “It’s a very treacherous and exhausting journey.”