Southern Sudan: To stay or go?

A hard, intermittent rain is falling as we land at a remote airstrip in Sudan's Blue Nile area - it's the beginning of the rainy season. Great for planting but water on the black cottonseed earth makes it sticky and treacherous.

As we drive from the airstrip three tall women saunter past in formation with huge piles of straw on their heads, like supermodels in outrageous hats. They are working in the rain to rebuild and extend the mud-and straw church.

The people already living in the settlements, called Belatuma, don't have much. They are mainly Maban who came last year and settled here. They were reaching devastation point even before more displaced started arriving. Now, seven thousand people have come in to the area in the last few days. People are coming to Belatuma from Mayak and Wadega, both of which have been affected by drought. Kali and Karen-Karen, too.

Also, an estimated 2,000 Nuer and Bunj have been displaced from Adan, an oil area. They will be making their way here, or to somewhere equally unequipped to host these desperate guests.

The Blue Nile area is in the eastern parts of Sudan, close to the border with Ethiopia. Here, as in most of Sudan, it is not culturally acceptable to send away anyone. As long as you can give them water it's up to the arrivee to decide to stay or go. The local leaders are encouraging the new arrivals to disperse and to cultivate the land for themselves. But what will they eat until their food is grown?

In a 'normal' year Blue Nile Province is self-sufficient in terms of food security. But while the eastern part of southern Blue Nile continues to produce, crops had failed in the western part due to floods in November and December of last year.

Since January, thousands of people have been chased from their homes near some oilfields and have arrived at Wadega, Maringi and Belatuma displaced camps. Eyewitnesses report the Government of Sudan (GoS) army and their related militia carrying out systematic depopulation of this highly strategic area around the oilfields.

Yet more people are coming east because of drought. In addition, the food crisis in Ethiopia has meant that many Sudanese who had gone into exile there are now making their way home.

An ACT supported Church Consortium (ACT-CC)) is the only relief agency working in Blue Nile and it's staff has already had to cut food distributions by half, due to lack of funding.

"We don't know how to distribute", says a staff member who for security reason cannot be named. "There are so many more people in need than we were able to anticipate. Even in January people were relying on roots and wild foods."

The newly-arrived displaced tell that they left their homes in Girop (near Bunj in northern Upper Nile) after fierce Government of Sudan (GoS) offensives in the area. It had taken them four days' walking to reach Belatuma. Rebel fighters with Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) had had a camp in Girop which served as some protection for the local population. That was until GoS pursued SPLA and sacrificed any local citizen who happened to be in their way, using heavy artillery against them.

The final straw for many came when a young boy and his sister were snatched by the government forces, the boy arbitrarily beaten and the girl taken away.

So the population fled, leaving their carefully tended fields for the possibility of scavenging rock-hard palm fruit (the only 'wild food' available here) and safety. Now they are selling their beads for sorghum. Some will continue on their way to Wadega and Kurmuk. If they are lucky they can make 'homes' under plastic sheeting, given to them by existing residents, to whom they had originally been donated by ACT-CC.

Walle Dwagi is in her sixties, thin and somewhat fragile-looking, but still standing tall. She and her family have moved into an abandoned and half-collapsed tukul (mud hut). Given what she has been through in the last week, she must be stronger than she looks.

"My son, daughters-in-law, grandchildren and I ran here from Girop because of fighting and came here to look for food. But when we arrived we found there was none. For four days we have been living on palm fruit and 'lalop' leaves.

"Last year I had to move from my original home of Dingo because of fighting. Me and my family had worked hard cultivating in Girop and had to leave everything. We were growing sorghum and cow peas."

An official from the Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Association (the relief wing of the SPLA), told us that 15 to 17 thousand were on the move from Girop, Midir and Tebreb. SRRA officials are notorious for gross overestimations in such circumstances, but even if he had multiplied his figures by 300 per cent……

Peter Luic, a local Maban has just come back to Blue Nile from the Bonga refugee camp in Ethiopia, where he works as a camp leader and medical assistant. Many in the camp suffer from malaria and dysentry.

His people are starting to come home to Blue Nile. They want to cultivate, which they are not allowed to do in the refugee camp. But should they stay or go? In Bonga there is no famine, but they have no freedom. They are not even allowed to collect firewood. Each family has an area 15 X15m and they live in a state of total dependence on the United Nations High Commision for Refugees (UNHCR).

In 1987 Peter left Anyile and went to Bonga with his family. Now they remain in Bonga. I ask if they will come back. "Possibly,'" he says, "But my children are at school in Bonga".

How do you find things in Blue Nile?

"Better than expected but the insecurity is bad."

What about the food situation?

"I haven't yet had a chance to see properly. But I'm finding so many displaced passing through. This is putting pressure on the food stores here. I want to assess the situation here and then return to Bonga."

Accompanied by the Programme Manager of ACT-CC, I take a walk around the village where their compound is situated. Past the village, we spot two new tukuls, far away from everything else and each other. This is not how the Sudanese live. Puzzled, we approach the nearest tukul. A family are there, regarding us warily. The Program Manager greets them in Arabic. They greet him in return, but they are still nervous as they enter into a conversation with him.

The family, it appears, is divided by leprosy. The people we speak with are uninfected and are living away from the others to protect themselves. They have all come from Bonga camp in Ethiopia where they suffered unbearable persecution and prejudice, yet were given no medical treatment. The uninfected members have moved with their infected relatives, building their house for them and sharing their food, caring for them as best they can with no medicines and no income.

We visit the tukul of the 'infected' family. They are shy, and there is no customary handshake. The father, a man in his latest forties, is worst affected. He has lost most of his fingers to the disease and the stumps are unbearably itchy, he tells us. He has never been given any treatment or even anything to relieve the symptoms. The ACT-CC Project Manager, from south Sudan and no stranger to adversity himself, is moved and upset by the plight of this man and his family. He promises to try and get help from the doctor at a nearby hospital.

As we leave he tells me of his fear that ACT-CC's Blue Nile programme will collapse from lack of funding. Just then a chameleon coloured in bright reds and yellows dashes from the river across our path.

The Project Manager tells me this is a good omen.

Positive evaluation of Blue Nile projects

The evaluation concluded that the relief projects have made significant and sustainable improvements to the quality of people's lives since they began their programmes in the area since 1997. In particular:

* There are now functioning, equipped schools with teachers receiving continuing training. ACT-CC has encouraged the involvement of women and elevated their status significantly by training them as teachers.

*The single hospital in the area can now boast two doctors and a medical coordinator. The hospital itself is now relatively well-equipped and partially renovated, with a functioning laboratory. Administrative structures have been set up and training given to around forty local health workers.

* Agricultural practices and different seeds have been introduced to the area by ACT-CC so yields have increased and eighteen local agricultural extensionists have been trained.

*Local technicians have been trained to repair boreholes which had been sabotaged during the battle between the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) and the forces of the Government of Sudan (GoS) for occupation of the area.

*An excellent working relationship has been built up with the local authorities.

*Local people are involved in all activities.

Lack of funding

Despite the good evaluation the programme is at risk of not being fully funded. And there is no UN food programme to help out - Blue Nile is 'contested', that is to say, it is neither officially the north or the south, and the World Food Programme (indeed all member agencies of the UN-run Operation Lifeline Sudan consortium) has not been given the requisite GoS permission to work there. Thus if ACT-CC do not receive sufficient funds to work effectively, then no other agency can plug the gaps.

''The money is just not there'", ACT-CC staff explains, " It has gone to Eastern Europe, Mozambique, Ethiopia etc. We have achieved so much in Blue Nile, brought about an improvement in the local markets which have become busy and trade has flourished. People were even producing surpluses, thanks to ACT-CC. We wanted to start an income generation scheme and to move on from relief. But now this has happened - a huge movement of people east and westwards, people having to leave their land because of drought, famine, fighting, persecution………"

ACT-CC had previously purchased relief food from Ethiopia, but now due to that country's own food crisis, there is none spare. They are having to try and meet the costs of flying in food from Nairobi.

Asked what will happen next in Blue Nile, ACT-CC staff are pesimistic: "Hundreds of people may starve to death and it could be avoided."

Jane Connolly is an ACT Press Officer and she visited Sudan in May, 2000