Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2014 22:34:53 +0100
South Sudan's next generation in a hurry to fight
Young boys dream of carrying kalashnikovs not books as arms airdrops and
night raids for child soldiers make peace in the world's newest nation ever
distant
* Hannah McNeish in Pagak, South Sudan
* Wednesday 12 November 2014 12.13 GMT
*
<http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/nov/12/south-sudan-child
-soldiers-fighting-war#start-of-comments> Jump to comments (3)
The boys skipping under the limp yellow string and ragged red flag that
officially separates rebel-held South Sudan and Ethiopia escaped massacres,
starvation and disease to seek shelter and safety across the border after a
weeks-long walk that claimed many lives.
Despite food rations and
<http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2014/aug/15/s
outh-sudan-famine-lawlessness> fears of an imminent famine in South Sudan,
they want to go back and fight, just as soon as the rebels will take them.
"Now I'm too small," says 13-year-old Lajar, surveying his hands. "I'm just
waiting to grow so I can go."
More than 2 million people have fled their homes in South Sudan
<http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/23/south-sudan-state-that-fell-ap
art-in-a-week> since fighting erupted in December.
The conflict was sparked by a long-standing enmity between South Sudan
President Salva Kiir, from the country's largest Dinka ethnic group, and his
former deputy turned rebel leader Riek Machar, a Nuer, which quickly spread
from the streets of Juba into an increasingly tribal conflict.
Around 200,000 South Sudanese
<http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/oct/30/south-sudan-refug
ees-flooding-local-dynamics-ethiopia-ethnic-rivalry> have fled to Gambella -
a remote rural region in western Ethiopia.
<http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/05/us-southsudan-un-usa-idUSKBN0IO2B
720141105> The US and regional heads are pushing the UN security council for
sanctions against warring South Sudanese leaders to end the conflict, while
rights groups are calling for an
<http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/11/05/south-sudan-neighbors-should-press-un-ar
ms-embargo%E2%80%8B> arms embargo.
But here, the talk is of arms airdrops and night raids of villages across
the border for more child soldiers. It's a far cry from the peace talks held
in five-star hotels in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, where leaders
<http://www.dailynewsegypt.com/2014/06/10/south-sudan-rivals-warmongers-medi
ators-say/> pay lip service to international donors, while
<http://online.wsj.com/articles/uganda-to-supply-south-sudan-weapons-1413475
592%E2%80%8B> buying weapons and time during the six-month rainy season,
which is ending now.
Meanwhile, some mothers at the nearby Kule refugee camp are just waiting for
the roads to dry up so their sons and brothers can head back to battle.
Rebecca Nyadel, 33, survived a massacre in Urol, in South Sudan's Jonglei
state, and walked with her 12 children for 30 days eating "leaves that
tasted of salt", and passing piles of bodies to reach Ethiopia.
But in a war that has been
<http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/oct/21/south-sudan-sexua
l-violence-rampant-un-envoy> marked by unprecedented levels of sexual
violence, largely against children, Nyadel is willing to sacrifice her
18-year-old son to avenge what she considers the extermination of their
people. "Death is normal. I'll die. He will die. All of us do not need to be
here and he can contribute," she says.
Her nine-year-old daughter, Nyaruach, just wants to go back to school with
her sisters so that she "can have a future".
Nyaruach sobs as she explains how she has seen at least 30 neighbours
killed. One, a pregnant woman, watched her children gunned down by soldiers,
before she was killed. "I also saw the vehicles with guns on hitting people
and driving over them," she adds.
As the dry season begins, clashes are expected to increase."We are here
trusting the UN. If they don't provide for those coming, we will have to go
back and see if we survive, so we have to believe and trust in them," says
40-year-old Andrew Kang, chairman of Kule's refugee committee and a former
child soldier.
Captured at 13 and forced to fight Khartoum government troops, he escaped
and headed to Ethiopia on a long journey during which many boys died. Now,
he is again dependent on the food and shelter that he hopes can stretch to
the next wave of refugees.
But with more than 600,000 refugees
<http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/aug/20/ethiopia-largest-
number-refugees-africa> making Ethiopia the largest host country on the
continent, NGOs have neither the land nor resources to help possibly tens or
hundreds of thousands more South Sudanese who are expected to pour over the
border in the coming weeks and months.
"If there is an influx of refugees now, we will not be able to provide food
to those that arrive in the next coming days or weeks," says Abdou Dieng,
country director for the UN's World Food Programme in Ethiopia. The $10m a
month for the 200,000 current refugees will run out in December.
More than 900 people arrived last week at Lietchor, a camp built in a hurry
on a floodplain and
<http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/oct/30/south-sudan-refug
ees-flooding-local-dynamics-ethiopia-ethnic-rivalry> now only accessible by
helicopter. Another 500 will cross soon, but with nowhere to put them apart
from on more floodplains, stories of babies drowning as their mothers
collect meagre food rations look set to continue.
Despite education being a way to stop boys wanting to carry kalashnikovs
instead of school books, it's a far-off dream for what aid workers here call
"a forgotten crisis".
"I was going to school but now there is war everywhere so we have to do that
instead," says Lajar, strolling back to the camps arm in arm with one of the
many other young boys waiting to defend their country.
MDG : South Sudane refugees in Gambella, EthiopiaSouth Sudanese refugee
women carry weekly food rations at Ethiopia's Kule camp in Gambella.
Photograph: Hannah McNeish
(image/jpeg attachment: image001.jpg)