Famine |
Thousands of people
at the epicentre of a man-made famine in South Sudan emerged from the
safety of the swamps this past weekend hoping to receive emergency
deliveries of food.
For months now, Bol
Mol, a 45-year-old former oil field security officer, has struggled to
keep his family alive, spearfishing in nearby rivers and marshes while
his three wives gather water lilies for food.
They eat once a day if they are lucky, but at least in the swamps, they are safe from marauding soldiers.
"Life here is
useless," Mol said, his hand clutching his walking stick as he waited
with thousands of others beneath the baking-hot sun at Thonyor in Leer
County.
Aid agencies have
negotiated with the government and rebel forces to establish a
registration centre in the village before food deliveries.
The UN declared a
famine in parts of South Sudan a week ago, but the hunger affecting an
estimated 100,000 people is not being caused by adverse climate
conditions.
More than three
years of conflict have disrupted farming, destroyed food stores and
forced people to flee recurring attacks. Food shipments have been
deliberately blocked and aid workers have been targeted.
It is no
coincidence that soaring levels of malnutrition have been found in Leer,
a rebel stronghold and the birthplace of opposition leader Riek Machar,
whose falling out with President Salva Kiir in December 2013 led to the
civil war.
Evidence of the
devastating conflict is everywhere: in the burned walls of schools and
clinics, in the ruins of razed homes and public buildings, and in the
desolation of the once-thriving market.
A peace deal signed
in August 2015 was never fully implemented. As recently as December,
the members of yet another 56,000 households were forced to flee to the
safety of the swamps when yet another government offensive reached the
area.
The constant need
to escape the war means people are unable to plant or harvest crops, and
their livestock is often looted by armed men.
With their
livelihoods destroyed, people are reduced to gathering wild plants,
hunting and waiting for emergency food supplies that come too rarely and
are frequently inadequate."It is not enough," Mol said as he waited to register for the next food delivery.
The fighting and
the fleeing have interrupted all aspects of life: Mol said his children
had not gone to school for the last three years.
"Right now, the
majority of the people are living in the swamps. If you go there and see
the children, you can even cry, the situation is too bad," he said.
Nyangen Chuol, 30,
keeps her five children alive with aid agency rations of sorghum
supplemented with lilies, coconuts and sometimes fish.
"Before the
conflict, I lived here in Thonyor but had to move far away to the
islands in the swamp for safety," she said. This weekend's registration
for food deliveries had drawn her back.
Outside the
famine's epicentre in the northern Unity State, there are nearly five
million people who also need food handouts, mostly in areas where the
fighting has been fiercest.
"The biggest issue
has been insecurity in some of these areas which makes it very difficult
to access," said George Fominyen of the World Food Programme (WFP).
Too late for some
Aid workers warn
that by the time a famine is declared, it is already too late for some,
but the declaration has put pressure on the government to open up
access, at least for now, and international aid agencies are ratcheting
up their efforts.
Ray Ngwen Chek, a 32-year-old waiting for food, said the situation had steadily worsened over the years.
"Since 2013, we
have planted no crops, nothing, we just stay like this. You don't know
what you will survive on tomorrow," he said.
Hospitals and
schools are shut, Chek said, and children, surrounded by conflict and
with no other options, "are practicing how to carry guns" instead of
learning for the future.
Betrayed and
neglected by the country's leaders, the people of Leer struggle to hold
out hope for a political solution that would end the conflict. But Chek is certain of one thing: "Fighting is not a solution".
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