South Sudan: Q&A - Aid Agencies Fear Speaking Truth - Refugees Advocate
By Katy Migiro, 7 June 2013
interview
Tens of thousands of people have been
<
http://www.trust.org/item/20130529175735-hcanu> displaced due to conflict
in South Sudan's troubled Jonglei state and insecurity has prevented
humanitarian agencies from
<
http://www.trust.org/item/20130606050138-2eaj4/> delivering aid.
Caelin Briggs, an advocate for South Sudan with Refugees International,
spoke to Thomson Reuters Foundation about the dilemmas facing the
humanitarian community.
Q: What is the most pressing problem in Jonglei after last month's fighting
between the government and rebels?
Pibor county is about 140,000 people, and we literally have absolutely no
idea what is going on. We don't know where they are. We don't know what the
conditions are, how many are injured or wounded from the fighting. That is a
really serious situation.
When there was a brief break in some of the fighting ... what we saw were a
lot of children coming in with gunshot wounds and landmine injuries. It was
really concerning how many of the casualties coming in were very young
children.
Q: What's different about the latest violence in
<
http://www.trust.org/item/?map=analysis-jonglei-revolt-gives-south-sudan-a-
security-headache> Jonglei compared to
<
http://www.trust.org/item/?map=un-says-120000-in-ssudan-need-aid-after-figh
ting> earlier ethnic clashes between Murle and Lou Nuer militias?
This is a very different conflict, and this, in my view, is actually a lot
more troubling.
It was two ethnic groups that were fighting one another. There wasn't this
element of the state actually attacking civilians, which is what we are
seeing right now.
We are seeing a bit of a shift in how [Murle rebel leader David] Yau Yau
operates, actually holding territory. Typically, Yau Yau and his forces
conduct hit-and-run attacks.
Now what we have seen is when Yau Yau or Yau Yau's affiliates attacked
<
http://www.trust.org/item/20130508150901-27dy1> Boma, this town in the
south of Jonglei state, they actually held the town, which is not something
we have seen from them before. So I think that's making the government a bit
nervous.
Q: What happened in Pibor last month? Witnesses said the army ransacked the
town, while the army says it was a few renegade soldiers.
There's a strong ethnic element when it comes to the SPLA (the Sudan
People's Liberation Army, the South Sudanese military) abuses in Pibor town.
Pibor town is ethnically Murle, which is the same ethnicity as David Yau
Yau.
The SPLA battalion that is stationed in Pibor town is ethnically Lou Nuer.
The two groups have
<
http://www.trust.org/item/?map=factbox-south-sudan-tribal-conflict-2011-12/
> historically fought each other.
Add to that a whole lot of soldiers who haven't been paid, who are
ethnically Lou Nuer, who are frustrated with the Murle population, that's
why we are seeing a lot of the abuses.
Q: Why are humanitarian agencies not speaking out about these alleged
abuses?
None of the humanitarian agencies in South Sudan are really able to speak
out about the abuses they are seeing because in doing so, they would
jeopardise the lives of their staff.
The organisations that have been operating in Pibor town have been quietly
trying to talk about the SPLA abuses but can't really come out in the same
way to say this is what we are seeing because they then will not be allowed
back in the area.
In Pibor, we are seeing very deliberate vandalism of NGO compounds as a way
of keeping people from coming. It's not just that they are taking supplies.
In the MSF (Medecins Sans Frontieres) clinic, for example, they literally
went in and cut the cords of the machines and dumped medicine on the floor
and stamped on it to keep people out.
Q: Isn't the U.N. Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) able to protect civilians
and humanitarian workers?
After the
<
http://www.trust.org/item/?map=ssudan-admits-it-downed-un-helicopter-killin
g-four/> U.N. helicopter was shot down [by the SPLA] in December, this very
strange relationship developed between the UNMISS peacekeepers and the
government and the SPLA.
The government started saying in order to ensure your security - i.e., in
other words to make sure we don't shoot down your helicopters as we did in
December - you should clear all movements with us.
So that's what the peacekeepers had started doing. They started informing
SPLA anytime they were going to move anywhere.
It's an uncomfortably close relationship between peacekeepers and the
government. The peacekeepers need to have a lot more independence.
Q: Why can't they do that?
Their mandate, in a lot of ways, seems to be inherently contradictory. On
the one hand, they are supposed to be supporting the government and building
up the government capacity. On the other hand, they are supposed to be
protecting civilians.
Constantly, we are seeing the peacekeeping mission prioritise their
relationship with the government over protecting civilians.
When the government perpetrates abuses, it puts them in a difficult
position. I think there's a lot of ambiguity in how they should be dealing
with that.
****************************************************************************
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Africa: Aid for South Sudan's Jonglei, but People Scared to Return Home
By Katy Migiro More News From Our Correspondents, 6 June 2013
Nairobi - The United Nations is preparing to deliver emergency medical care
to tens of thousands of displaced people in South Sudan's troubled Jonglei
state, almost a month after they fled into the bush to escape conflict.
The area's main towns of Pibor and Boma are still deserted, amid a heavy
military presence, as civilians are too scared to seek food or medicines,
military and aid officials said.
On Wednesday, the U.N. said it had received $5.4 million from its Central
Emergency Response Fund to buy two helicopters and medical equipment to
treat or evacuate civilians injured in clashes in the eastern state of
Jonglei, the largest in South Sudan.
"Civilians have been fleeing from hostilities, and some of them have been
caught in crossfire," Toby Lanzer, the U.N.'s humanitarian coordinator in
South Sudan, told Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Violence has escalated in Jonglei since March, when the army launched an
offensive against rebels, led by David Yau Yau, who say they want to end
corruption and the dominance of the ruling party.
HOSPITALS LOOTED
No medical services are available for the 140,000 people living in Pibor
county, Lanzer said. Hospitals run by medical charities Medecins Sans
Frontieres (MSF) and Merlin in the towns of Pibor and Boma were looted last
month.
"We're just working on the final details now to help the non-governmental
organisations to get back on the ground," Lanzer said, adding that the
helicopters were due to arrive in the next couple of days.
It is now the rainy season, when much of Jonglei becomes a swamp and small
aircraft cannot land. Roads are only passable after several dry days.
On May 7, rebels captured and held Boma, on the southeastern tip of the
state, for two weeks. Aid agencies and town residents fled.
On May 10, the town of Pibor, about 150 km northwest of Boma, was also
deserted due to nearby fighting between the army and rebels. Security forces
ransacked homes and compounds of aid agencies in Pibor.
The army said the damage was caused by officers who defected from a state
wildlife force, and denied regular soldiers were behind the attack.
TRAPPED IN SWAMPS
MSF's head of mission in South Sudan, Vikki Stienen, said the U.N. money
would achieve little unless civilians were able to return to Pibor and Boma
to receive help. He said the towns were virtually deserted.
"There are still some 120,000 people missing," he said. "They are trapped
out in the swamps, and it is getting wetter and wetter without a way now for
us to access them."
Stienen said people were scared to come to the towns because of rumours that
some have been killed as suspected rebels.
"It's very difficult for them to explain to the government soldiers that
they are not the rebels," he said.
Pibor is predominantly Murle, Yau Yau's ethnic group. They are a minority
who have been marginalised and also embroiled in a long-running conflict
over land and cattle with the Lou Nuer, which has a strong presence in the
army.
Army spokesman Philip Aguer said that civilians are too scared to return to
Pibor because Yau Yau had ordered them to leave. He called upon them to
return to town.
Stienen said some of the displaced will already have died.
"There's no food. There's no access to safe water with diarrhoea, of course,
becoming a problem, with malaria cropping up, with no access to health care,
with trauma from being expelled," he said. "That is, of course, the worst
case scenario that we can look at."
This year, more than 19,000 people have fled Jonglei for neighbouring
countries, the U.N. has said. Stienen said another 11,000 have sought refuge
in South Sudan's capital, Juba.
Since winning independence from Sudan in 2011, South Sudan has been
struggling to impose its authority across vast swathes of territory teeming
with weapons after decades of civil war with Khartoum.
Yau Yau, a former theology student, launched the rebellion in 2010 after
failing to win a seat in state parliament. He was granted amnesty in 2011,
only to take up arms again a year later.
Ethnic violence has killed more than 1,600 people in Jonglei since South
Sudan's independence.
South Sudan
<
http://allafrica.com/stories/201306060617.html?aa_source=slideout>
Security Council Must Urgently Take Action to End Impunity in Darfur - ICC
Prosecutor
Deeply frustrated and disappointed by the Security Council's failure to take
any action against those responsible for .
<
http://allafrica.com/stories/201306060617.html?aa_source=slideout> see
more >
Read the <
http://www.trust.org/item/20130606050138-2eaj4> original of this
report on <
http://www.trust.org/alertnet/> AlertNet Climate, the Thomson
Reuters Foundation's daily news website on the human impacts of climate
change.
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Received on Thu Jun 06 2013 - 18:14:43 EDT