Love Sudan always

What we must learn from South Sudan

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Today the United Nations shelters 200,000 people inside its bases across South Sudan. Never before in history have tens of thousands of people sought refuge for such a long period in UN compounds. Never before have aid workers been forced to work in close proximity with armed peacekeepers under such conditions. South Sudan has reset the rules of aid operations forever.
When South Sudan celebrated its first Independence Day in the capital Juba on 9 July 2011, the 30 attending heads of state, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and western diplomats considered it an end to decades of brutal conflict. The new nation was internationally held up as a beacon of hope.  

In this optimistic environment, it was easy to ignore the warning signs of conflict brewing beneath the surface. Occasional outbreaks of violence over the two years that followed were dismissed as growing pains, and as ethnic clashes without wider consequences.

Negative talk about the world’s newest nation was decidedly out of fashion. The UN and non-governmental organisations spoke of development programmes and long-term peacebuilding. Emergency aid took a back seat as South Sudan was pushed towards ‘transition’ and ‘recovery’.

How catastrophically wrong we were.

When violence erupted on 15 December 2013, aid workers and UN peacekeepers found themselves woefully unprepared for the magnitude of the crisis that would follow.

Few people imagined in the following days that 30,000 South Sudanese would flee for their lives to the gates of UN peacekeeping bases across the country. Women and children arrived with only the bare essentials they could manage to carry, many of their homes destroyed in the fighting.

Peacekeepers sports fields and other free spaces were hastily cleared, as tents were set up to house the new arrivals. Draining systems were dug so the camps could provide toilets and washing facilities. Drinking water and food were trucked in. Aid workers uncomfortably set operations under the watchful eye of the peacekeepers and their guns.

Fewer people would have believed that three years later the so-called ‘protection of civilians sites’ inside UN bases would have grown to shelter a staggering 200,000 people. Families would still be too afraid to return home.

Aid workers and the UN mission were ill-prepared for a scenario where communities would stay long term inside UN grounds. At the most, they had considered people fleeing for a few hours or a couple of days. The potential problems with the new reality would soon begin to unfold.

Just days after the conflict broke out, the UN base in Akobo town was attacked. Two peacekeepers and at least 20 civilians were killed. Similar events would be repeated in the sites in Bor, Malakal and Juba in the years that followed.

The protection of civilian sites tested how aid workers and UN military peacekeepers could work side-by-side. Before, it was normal for aid workers to keep their distance from peacekeepers, as a signal to warring parties that they were neutral and not associated with military groups.

Forced to work alongside one another, each made commendable efforts to navigate this new terrain. Today the response has made important progress from where it stood three years ago. Coordination between peacekeepers and humanitarians has improved, and conditions for families living in the camps are far better than the flooded sites they endured in 2014.

Despite modest successes, however, we must ask ourselves if the lessons from South Sudan will be applied to the next outbreak of conflict. If 10,000 Congolese surged into the UN’s MONUSCO base in the Democratic Republic of the Congo tomorrow, would the humanitarian community do better?

In 2015, the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations made it global policy that UN missions with a mandate to protect civilians must open their gates to people fleeing violence, if peacekeepers are unable to protect them outside their bases. This policy, combined with the precedent set in South Sudan, makes it possible that these types of sites will emerge elsewhere in the future.

The tensions in the Central African Republic, Burundi and elsewhere, make this scenario a possibility sooner rather than later.

The Norwegian Refugee Council issued a publication this week applying lessons from South Sudan to future civilian site scenarios. It advises how aid workers and peacekeepers can co-exist in a shared space; how rules should be set up to manage criminality and security issues in camps; to prevent the flow of arms into sites; and how to ensure families are eventually able to leave and return home.

As a humanitarian community, we have a responsibility to learn from past operations. We will have no excuse to be unprepared for the next conflict where people flee to UN bases. Given the complexities of managing and navigating these sites, it is imperative that the UN, non-governmental organisations and donors start considering these issues now – before we are faced with the next crisis within a crisis.

If we wait until people flood into the next UN base, it is already too late.

SA has been 'hospitable', South Sudan rebel leader Machar tells UN

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Cape Town – South Sudan rebel leader Riek Machar, who has been in South Africa since last year, has told the United Nations that the country's government has been "hospitable", but he wishes to be released "from confinement and detention". 

"My host here South Africa has been hospitable," Machar said in a statement released on Wednesday after a teleconference with the UN security council. 

According to reports the leader of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-in-Opposition (SPLM-IO), arrived in South Africa late last year without the government's knowledge - after fleeing the capital Juba, claiming that President Salva Kiir wanted to assassinate him.

Reports said at the time that he was "basically under house arrest" near Pretoria, with his movements "restricted and phone calls monitored and controlled".

The Department of International Relations and Co-operation confirmed at the time that Machar was indeed in South Africa but denied claims that he was under house arrest.

Peaceful resolution 

In his statement Machar called on the UN to "...end the international policy of isolating the SPLM-IO, including my release from confinement and detention so as to enable our full engagement in finding a peaceful resolution to this conflict."

The conflict in South Sudan has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced more than two million people.

The country became Africa's youngest nation in 2011 after the end of a 21 year war with its neighbour Sudan for independence.

Last week President Kiir declared a unilateral ceasefire as he launched a national dialogue. The move was, however, seen as a controversial, as it excluded Machar. 

This was not the first time that Kiir had vowed the army will lay down arms in the three-year conflict, and he warned that his troops would defend themselves if attacked.

International community 

The SPLM-IO has however remained adamant that the announced dialogue was not going to be successful without Machar.

Deputy military spokesperson for SPLM-IO, Colonel Lam Paul Gabriel, told News24 that the dialogue was only a "smokescreen" meant to put the blame on those who were against Kiir.

Gabriel said that the move was meant to mislead the international community which had been pressuring Kiir to end the violence.

"The dialogue is one-sided since Machar is not part of it. We are, therefore, not going to participate in it without him. Machar is not a violent man as President Kiir seeks to portray him. He is the man of the people.

"Kiir knows that when he [Machar] gets back to the country he would simply put an end to his [Kiir's]looting. Once he gets back, we will defend him with everything that we have, even if it means that the fighting continues forever," sad Gabriel. 

18 people die of hunger in S. Sudan’s Boma: official

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June 5, 2017 (JUBA) - At least 18 people starved to death in Eastern South Sudanese state of Boma, a local official said on Monday.

"There is no food in Jebel Boma area of Boma state and as such, eighteen people died of hunger," said Achuan John, the minister of information in Boma, one of five states created out of former Jonglei.

Achuan said the areas affected by acute food shortage have no road connection to Pibor, the headquarters of Boma state.

"There are airstrips in Boma and if the humanitarian agencies, whom we are requesting to help, can drop food, that will make a difference," he said.

There is an economic crisis in South Sudan and the local currency, the South Sudanese pound has lost about 90% of its value leading to a surge of market commodities including food items imported from neighbouring countries. Economists estimate South Sudan inflation at 900%, one of the highest in the world.

The UN’s World Food Program, which distributes most of the food items in South Sudan has not confirmed the death in Boma state.

Humanitarian agencies warned in February when famine was declared in Unity state that 7.5 million South Sudan, or more than half the country’s population, will need food assistance this year.

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Contaminated vaccines kill 15 children in S Sudan: minister

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Juba - Fifteen children died in South Sudan after receiving contaminated measles vaccines that had not been properly refrigerated, and were mixed using the same syringe for four days.

In addition to the blunders handling the vaccine, Health Minister Riek Gai Kok said that two children, aged 12 and 13, had been recruited to administer it.

An investigation showed that local officials failed to follow immunisation guidelines during a four-day campaign to vaccinate around 300 people in the southeastern state of Kapoeta in May, Kok said.

"The team that vaccinated the children in this tragic event were neither qualified not trained for the immunisation," he added.

The campaign came amid a measles outbreak that has killed 70 children this year, the latest tragedy to strike the world's youngest nation, which has been gripped by civil war for over three years - affecting its ability to deliver decent healthcare.

The country has also been affected by repeated bouts of cholera.

"A single reconstitution syringe was used for multiple vaccine vials for the entire four days of the campaign instead of being discarded after single use," Kok said, referring to the device used to mix vaccines before injecting them with a separate syringe.

"The reuse of the reconstitution syringe causes it to become contaminated which in turn contaminates the measles vaccine vials and infects the vaccinated children."

Local health officials also failed to follow cold chain protocols.

"The vaccines were stored in a building with no cold chain facilities for four days," said Kok.

He did not expand on the use of children to administer the vaccines, saying only: "Recruiting children of twelve and thirteen that is unacceptable but we are going to find out how did it happen."

The investigation, supported by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the UN children's agency Unicef, determined that the children in the remote village of Nachodepele died from "the administration of a contaminated vaccine".

Another 32 children suffered similar symptoms of fever, vomiting and diarrhoea but recovered.

According to the WHO, measles vaccines are freeze-dried and need to be reconstituted with a diluting agent just before being administered. The vaccine is supposed to be kept in the dark at between 2C and 8C.

"This year alone we have received 70 children (who have died) of measles .... Vaccines are safe if (officials) follow the guidelines," said WHO country director Abdulmumin Usman.

Nearly two million people have fled South Sudan, which is also suffering a famine induced by the conflict. Tens of thousands of people have been killed in fighting.

Total Asks to Revisit South Sudan Oil-Blocks, Minister Says

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Total SA approached South Sudan about developing two of its biggest oil blocks after previous talks on the fields collapsed, according to the African nation’s petroleum minister.

"They have written to me that they are still interested" in blocks B1 and B2, Ezekiel Lol Gatkuoth said Monday in an interview in Cape Town. Tullow Oil Plc has also asked to discuss the blocks, he said.

South Sudan needs foreign investment to ramp up oil production -- currently at about 130,000 barrels a day -- after conflict that erupted in 2013 cut output. Discussions with Total on blocks B1 and B2 reached an impasse in April, prompting the country to open negotiations to new investors. The blocks are part of the former Block B, which the government says is the nation’s largest untapped oil deposit.

Total’s officials “weren’t forthcoming” during the discussions, Gatkuoth said. The parties disagreed on the length of the exploration period, capital-gains taxes and royalty terms, he said.

Emails to Total weren’t immediately answered.

"We’re still in discussions with the government around opportunities in South Sudan," said Robin Sutherland, general manager of new ventures in Africa for Tullow. "We think it’s a good opportunity” and there are "many options" for transporting oil from the nation with pipelines planned in neighboring Uganda and Kenya, he said.

Block B, a 120,000-square-kilometer (46,300-square-mile) area, was divided into three portions in 2012. South Sudan, which has Sub-Saharan Africa’s third-biggest oil reserves according to BP Plc, aims to pump 200,000 barrels a day by the end of this year and 350,000 a day by mid-2018.

South Sudan's war leaves disabled, elderly at special risk

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Bentiu - More than one million disabled people are vulnerable to the increasing violence of South Sudan's brutal civil war.

Mary Nyakwas lost her leg to a crocodile while fleeing the fighting. She and her four children had taken refuge from the conflict in a nearby swamp when the reptile attacked her.

Now the 30-year-old sits on the floor of her hut in a civilian protection camp in Bentiu, running her finger over the curve of her stump. Nyakwas relies on friends and neighbors to bring her water and food. Without them, she says, she'd starve.

"I can't do anything for myself now," she says.

When clashes break out, South Sudan's disabled and elderly are often unable to flee and are sometimes shot, hacked to death or burned alive, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch.

Internally displaced 

The disabled and older people "find themselves at much greater risk of starvation or abuse," the Human Rights Watch report said, urging the United Nations and aid groups to do more to assist the vulnerable.

As South Sudan's civil war moves well into its fourth year, aid workers are struggling to meet the needs of 1.9 million internally displaced people. An estimated 250 000 are disabled and living in the UN civilian protection sites across the country, the World Health Organisation says.

Even in the camps, many end up living in squalor with little assistance.

Nyakwas has been offered some help. The International Committee of the Red Cross planned to fly her to the capital, Juba, so she could be fitted with a prosthetic limb. But she didn't want to leave her children behind.

The ICRC says it is looking into creating small mobile units to operate in more remote areas of the country. But because of a recent increase in fighting, the organization has put such projects on hold.

'Why did God make me this way?'

The UN humanitarian agency said many aid groups are trying to respond to the needs of the disabled and elderly. It also called on all parties in the conflict to spare the most vulnerable from the "scourge of war."

Another young South Sudanese woman, Nyang Maria, has never been able to use her legs, but she says life was easier before she came to live in the Bentiu camp.

As she can't stand up, the 19-year-old is forced to sit on the camp's filthy latrines, which are rarely cleaned and full of feces.

"Before, I could go to the bathroom anywhere," Nyang says. "Here, there are just a few toilets and they're all full of disease."

In order to increase her mobility, the International Organisation for Migration gave her a special-needs tricycle, but she says the tires keep bursting because of the camp's gravel roads. It now sits idle in the corner of her home. She lies limp on the floor beside it.

"Why?" she says, tears streaming down her face. "Why did God make me this way?"

Above a million disabled people at risk in South Sudan

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HRW urges UN to assist disabled people, who are increasingly becoming vulnerable to violence in South Sudan’s civil war.

The war has left more than 1.7 million refugees, and 1.9 million South Sudanese are internally displaced [Reuters/Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has urged the United Nations and aid groups to assist more than a million disabled people, who are increasingly becoming vulnerable to violence in South Sudan’s civil war.

“People with disabilities and older people are often left behind during attacks and find themselves at much greater risk of starvation or abuse,” Shantha Rau Barriga, disability rights director at HRW, said.

“This problem is especially acute in South Sudan, where decades of civil war has increased the number of people with disabilities, and where armed forces on both sides target civilians with impunity.”

To fulfil their missions, aid organisations should do more to ensure that they are meeting the needs of people with disabilities and older people, HRW said.

UN investigators and rights group have frequently accused both the army and rebels of murder, torture and rape since the civil war began, and say the crimes almost always go unpunished.

"Both sides have committed abuses that may qualify as war crimes and crimes against humanity, including looting, indiscriminate attacks on civilians and the destruction of civilian property, arbitrary arrests and detention, beatings and torture, enforced disappearances, rape and gang rape, extrajudicial executions, and killings," HRW says in its latest report.

An estimated 250,000 people with disabilities live in displacement camps in South Sudan, says the World Health Organization (WHO).

The ongoing conflict has fractured the country along ethnic lines - Kiir is an ethnic Dinka, Machar is a Nuer - and forced a quarter of the country's 12 million population to flee their homes.

The war has left millions of civilians cut off from any aid, HRW says.

Growing refugees

The war has left more than 1.7 million refugees and forced more than two million children to flee their homes.

South Sudan is in the centre of Africa bordered by six countries. It is rich in oil, but after the civil war it is also one of the least developed regions on earth.

One hundred thousand people are starving, and about a million South Sudanese face the risk of famine. Roughly half of the country’s population needs food assistance.

There may be more than 1.2 million people with disabilities in South Sudan. The conditions of fighting and famine in the country have created one of the world's largest humanitarian crises.

China donates anti-malaria drugs to South Sudan

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June 4, 2017 (JUBA) – China has donated over half a million boxes of anti-malaria drugs to South Sudan to help it fight the deadly disease.

A WHO free malaria testing and treatment campaign in Juba (WHO)

The donations, which included tablets and syringes worth $750,000, were handed over to the country’s health ministry on Saturday.

While handing over the medical items, the Chinese ambassador to South Sudan, He Xiandong, said the donation was part of Beijing’s efforts to help war-torn South Sudan develop its health sector.

The donation, he said, symbolizes true friendship and bilateral cooperation between China and the Republic of South Sudan.

"Public health is of vital importance to any country especially in South Sudan. That is why China attaches great importance to the cooperation between our two countries in the sector of public health," said the Chinese envoy.

About 400,000 people are set to benefit from the donated items.

Malaria is a life-threatening blood disease caused by parasites transmitted to humans through the bite of the Anopheles mosquito.

Symptoms of the disease, according to the Center for Disease Control, can be classified into uncomplicated and severe malaria.

South Sudan’s health minister, Riek Gai Kok said the donation was timely as Malaria cases will increase between July and September.

"Our partnership with China on daily basis is growing from strength to strength because China’s contribution to our country is felt in the grassroots level," said the minister.

In April, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), South Sudan recorded steady increase in new malaria cases as infections among people over five years increased from 700,000 in 2012 to 1.1 million in 2016 and another 600,000 children under five got infected.

Also, at least 391,000 new malaria infections and 19 deaths have reportedly been recorded since the start of 2017 across South Sudan.

China was one of the countries that recognized South Sudan’s independence from neighbouring Sudan on July 9, 2011.

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Andrew Loku was traumatized from kidnapping, torture in South Sudan

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The first day of the inquest into Andrew Loku’s death offered a detailed outline of his life, including the source of his mental health challenges.


After graduating from a construction program at George Brown College, Andrew Loku was keen to get a stable job and send more money back to his wife and five children in South Sudan, a coroner's inquest heard Monday.


Kingsley Gilliam, a spokesperson for the Black Action Defence Commitee, said outside the inquest Monday that the job of crisis intervention should be shifted away from police.

Three weeks before he died, Andrew Loku posed proudly for a photo in his graduation gown, eager to begin a new chapter in his life, coroner’s court heard Monday at the first day of a detailed probe into the high-profile police shooting death.

“He was excited, he was happy,” said Jackie Patterson, Loku’s case worker at Across Boundaries, an organization that provides mental health support for racialized communities in Toronto.

Graduating from a construction program at George Brown College, Loku was keen to get a stable job and send more money back to his wife and five children in his native South Sudan, Patterson said. He ultimately hoped to bring his family to Canada.

It was the last day she saw him alive, Patterson testified, becoming emotional.

“When I was taking his picture, he had this smile,” she said. “He was looking forward to starting a new life.”

Loku, 45, was shot twice by a Toronto police officer on July 5, 2015, after police were summoned to his apartment complex by an emergency call. The 911 call, made from a neighbouring apartment, said Loku had a hammer and was threatening to kill the caller’s friend.

Ontario’s civilian police watchdog, the Special Investigations Unit (SIU), cleared the officer who shot Loku, concluding no criminal charge would be laid because the officer believed he needed to stop a life-threatening attack.

The inquest into his death, overseen by Dr. John Carlisle, began Monday with 10 parties being granted standing to participate. The inquest is being held not to assign blame, but examine the circumstances of Loku’s death in order to prevent future fatalities.

The probe is expected to last for three weeks and hear from 20 witnesses, including the unnamed officer who shot Loku.

Throughout the day, coroner’s court got a detailed outline of Loku’s life, including the source of his mental health challenges.

Loku was born in 1970 in the village of Lire, in the Kajo-Keji region of what is now South Sudan. In 1993 he married Jane Poni and had five children, who today range in age from 12 to 20.

Jonathan Shime, the lawyer for the Loku family, told jurors that Loku’s life was “disrupted by a terrible war.” In 1998, Loku was kidnapped by rebel forces and held for two months, enduring beatings and torture.

When Loku was released, he fled to Uganda, then in 2004, he came to Canada alone as a refugee. He was diagnosed with PTSD and showed signs of depression, loss of identity, and isolation due to losing touch with his family, though he later regained contact with his relatives. For years after, he suffered from flashbacks to the torture.

Court heard that in the final few years of his life that Loku’s mental health had stabilized and he had not been taking any medication.

Loku, however, had previously disclosed to mental health care workers that he was a recovering alcoholic. An autopsy conducted after the shooting concluded Loku’s blood-alcohol level was 247 mg/100 mL of blood, three times the legal limit.

At the time of his death, Loku was living in an apartment building near Eglinton Ave. W. and Caledonia Rd. with units leased by CMHA to provide housing for people with mental health challenges.

According to a summary of expected evidence provided by Michael Blain, the lawyer for the coroner, Loku was picked up by police about an hour before his death, after officers spotted him riding an e-bike on the Don Valley Parkway.

Two officers, concerned for his safety on the busy highway, seized his bike and drove him home, noting there was a faint smell of alcohol on his breath. He was dropped off late on July 4.

Soon after, a 911 call was made from the apartment unit directly above Loku’s, indicating he had come upstairs and was threatening one of the residents. The inquest heard Loku had recently been complaining about the upstairs neighbours making noise, keeping him from sleeping.

When two officers arrived a few minutes later, Loku was located down the hall from the unit where the resident had made the call. When he saw the officers, “he has the hammer in his hand and is gesturing,” Blain told jurors, summarizing the evidence expected to be heard.

Surveillance cameras in the hallway captured Loku as he moved toward the officers, but did not record the moment Loku was shot. Blain said the officers are expected to say that as Loku was getting closer, he was not complying with the demands to drop the hammer.

“Each of them decided they would have to use their firearm,” Blain said, though only one did.

Robin Hicks, a witness to the shooting, told the Star two days after the shooting that she had managed to calm Loku down prior to the officers’ arrival, and that he posed no danger to anyone, including the officers.

Carlisle approved a total of 10 parties to participate in the inquest. They are lawyers for Loku’s family; two different lawyers for the officers involved; Toronto police Chief Mark Saunders; the Toronto Police Association; the Toronto Police Services Board; the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA); the Black Action Defence Committee (BADC); the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health’s Empowerment Council; and Across Boundaries.

Groups advocating on behalf of racialized communities and those with mental health challenges are hoping to raise issues around implicit bias, including the role of race and mental illness in police-involved shootings.

“He did not need to die,” Kingsley Gilliam, spokesperson for BADC, said outside coroner’s court Monday. “We need a shift in paradigm, where we shift crisis intervention away from police.”

In a statement to the jury on behalf of Loku’s family, Shime said Loku’s relatives and friends “suffer every day with his absence.”

“Andrew was a warm, kind and gentle man. Regardless of the struggles he had endured, he always made sure to look after the people around him and make them feel valued,” Shime said.

“He only hoped for a better and more peaceful life for (himself), his children, his family and his country.”

The inquest continues Tuesday.

Wendy Gillis can be reached at wgillis@thestar.ca