(13-14 November 2002, Rubkona – Bentiu)

From the mission diary: In the line of fire

Donato Kiniger-Passigli

Khartoum, 16 November 2002 – “We are all to Peace” recites a publicity printed all over town, showing northern Arab and southern Nuers ethnic Sudanese converging ideally in a peaceful march, embraced by the wings of a dove.

But peace is hard to reach, especially when considering that peace talks¹ can do very little to stop the violence of unruly factions and criminal militias riding the most desolate lands and carrying out wanton killings among desperate people.

These are my thoughts, a couple of days after being evacuated from the midst of a battle, while sipping mango juice at the Khartoum Hilton hotel. And this is what I can now write down on paper to keep fresh in my memory the many details of two days of war which I spent in a small enclave of Unity State, in the south of Sudan.

November 13 should have been the last busy day of a field assessment mission which took our group of seven representatives from UN agencies and NGOs to the garrison towns of Wau in western Bahr el Gazhal and to Bentiu, in oil-rich Unity State. Garrison towns are little enclaves where Sudanese Government forces defend invisible boundaries never larger than a few miles. All around is the territory of SPLA² forces and more frequently of several unruly militias, all connected in a spiral of violence and constantly changing alliances.

Our team was based in the UN compound of Rubkona, three kilometres away from the main town, Bentiu, on the opposite bank of the Bahr el Gazhal which looks more like a series of patchy ponds rather than a river. Rubkona’s “natural pool”, as teammate Sean put it, is one of the ponds where kids play, trucks and bicycles are washed, and water is fetched for the use of the community.

The whole area is swampy, and even at this time of the year the heat is sometimes unbearable for those who are not used to working at these latitudes. The UN compound is composed of eight tuculs, a small room used as a kitchen, a latrine, an improvised shower and barrels of fuel around the cars. A large mat serves as a dormitory and as a mosque for the local drivers. Praveen, my Indian colleague and occasional roommate, had spent the previous night watching the stars under a mosquito net, navigating through the bright constellations and finally falling soundly asleep. After a sleepless night, I was determined to follow his advice for the following night and enjoy the tranquillity and the breeze of this lost point in space. But little did Praveen and I think that on that same evening the two main militia groups, the SSIM (South Sudan Independence Movement) and the SSUM (South Sudan United Movement) had decided to fight a heavy battle around and across our camp.

That day, we had visited the Yonyang site in Rubkona, which hosts around 4,000 displaced ethnic Neurs, surviving the climate of hostility in extremely poor conditions. People live in fear and are constantly terrorised by the militias who, a year ago, conducted a campaign of abductions, capturing 900 schoolboys and adolescents. A UN local officer told me that in this part of Sudan it can easily happen that someone is captured and locked into a steel container until he dies of suffocation. Last year, two state ministers were gunned down and the militia leader responsible for the assassination prohibited their relatives from burying them and left their bodies to be devoured by vultures. Those scavenging birds became a worrisome presence over our heads and the arid land which surrounded us.

In Yonyang we met with the elders among the tribal Nuers, gathering in an abandoned church, with no roof and destroyed walls, but the only building of this camp. An old man told us through the interpreter that he would like to go back to his village, only two kilometres away, but only if peace will come. Peace is a big word around here and old people realize that it cannot be achieved with the stroke of a pen. The question of peace, if and when it comes, is in the minds of all these destitute people, men, women and children whose mere existence is linked to the food distribution of the UN and NGOs.

In a meeting with the elders of Bentiu, that same afternoon of November 13, an old woman told us that if it was up to them, the women, they would achieve peace in one day because – she said- we suffer from hunger, primarily from war. “Long past are the days when we could make a spear and go fishing, she recalled, and added: Now we can only wait for the food rations of the UN and hope that the flies sticking on our skin won’t bring us diseases”. Another old tribal chief foretold us that guests are no longer respected in this land and that it’s better to be confronted by wild animals in the bush rather than by men.

Those people lack everything to live a decent life. They do not have access to clean water, education, health and sanitation. They do not have the fishing nets they used to have, or the cattle they used to herd.

With these and other images in front of our eyes, our team had regrouped in the Rubkona base in the late afternoon of November 13. Mabil, the Sudanese in charge of the UN base, had promised us a good dinner for our last supper in Unity State. In fact, just outside our huts, lots of pans were laid out full of tasty food. We all ate quickly, trying to avoid the molesting flies and praising the efforts of the cook. It was 6:15 in the afternoon and I was holding a cup of tea when we heard the first rounds of fire. The conversation stopped in the air as the first bullets started flying across our camp. Someone shouted: Go down! Go down! And we all threw ourselves on the ground, into or in between the huts. The machine gun fire lasted for quite a while and I only felt my heart pounding and thoughts spinning while I was clasping that cup of tea. The shoot out continued unabated for about half an hour making us asked ourselves if those were the last moments of our lives. We did not have any protection and no place to hide in our camp made of mud and straw. The first mortar attacks exploded also very near to us and we found ourselves grappling into one of the huts, desperately trying to reach for the radio room to signal the UN headquarters in Khartoum that we were in danger. But this was not possible as the first rounds of a long battle to come were still being fired. It was only around 7:00 PM that the rounds of fire became less frequent and then suddenly came to a halt.

Immediately we regrouped and saw that none of us was hurt. John and Mabil, our Sudanese colleagues, told us that apparently we were not the targets of the attack although we were exactly in the line of fire between the two armed factions. What to do, where to go, what chances did we have to go to a safe haven? These questions were in our minds. Praveen and I decided to collect our few things from the hut in order to load a car with our belongings, preparing to go.

For a moment there we looked around us. If those guys decided to kill us or abduct us, they could have easily done it. No place around made us feel secure. We were at their mercy.

Mabil told us that the warring parties were having a dispute over some defector which left the troops of the SSUM commander to join the SSIM forces. Previous battles had started often over even more futile reasons. But this time they were using our base as a battleground and they could have stormed it at any time. Somehow we even found ourselves making fun of the incident and Praveen did a rapid survey of which places could have offered a bit more security if the fighting had resumed. He concluded that the refrigerator and the two filing cabinets of the base, were “prima facie” the more robust containers to hide in. We started laughing although it was nervous laughter and we all tried to find solace in the supposedly consoling words repeated from mouth to mouth: “In the history of the Nuer – they told us over the radio from Khartoum – it is proven that the Nuer tribes do not fight at night.” There was still time before sunset and the fighting Nuer decided to keep busy until the end.

While I was in my hut, hastily getting all my belongings together, again the AK 47 automatic rifles started to pump out all the bullets kept in reserve. While Praveen escaped from the hut and run across our camp to find refuge with the other members of the team, I had no choice but to jump over a small bedside table found on one of the corners of the tucul, crash on top of it and hide under it. This fight was the most intense I had ever experienced, even compared to the explosions I saw and heard in Croatia and Bosnia, ten years ago. At this time, all I was thinking was to stay low. To stay as low as possible. To duck under the crashed small table and to pray for my life. I could hear the explosions so close to me that I even thought that all bullets were going through my hut. I felt my heart beat so fast that it felt as if it would leap to my throat. I could barely breathe and was terrorized by the mortar shells falling just outside, just a few meters away from me. I was still laying low, trying to go even deeper down into the ground when I saw a lizard near me, just as afraid as I was, but alive. Strangely, I was relieved by the presence of this odd companion and may have even smiled at him in this awkward circumstance. After the last blasts and heavy explosions, I turned around and saw that it was dark. It was 19:45 when the explosions near me were last heard and there I was still alive, in one piece. I saw that a few bullets had pierced the roof of my hut and hit its mud walls. I slowly stood up and found the others whom I didn’t even know were still there in our camp. After taking care of a few scratches, we made contact with the UN security in Khartoum. We told them we hoped to be evacuated as soon as possible and later they confirmed that two single-engined planes where ready on the tarmac in Khartoum to get us out of here. But the night was long. We knew now that the Nuers traditionally do not fight at night, but what guarantees did we have that they would not raid our base? Praveen and I pulled out the beds from the hut and decided to sleep wrapped into the mosquito nets under the starry sky. That night was very hot and humid and the mosquitoes hardly left us.

Our thoughts and feelings were mixed trying to assess the situation:

• We were pawns in the militias’ hands;
• We did not have any way out that night and to try to escape with the curfew was almost suicidal;
• We knew that the fight would presumably resume in the early hours of the following morning and we did not have any way out; 
• The risk of being caught in the crossfire was very high, as well as the chances that one flying bullet would hit the fuel barrels beside our huts;
• We did not know if and when the UN security would manage to send a plane to get us out.

I was thinking about the reasons for my being there, but I realized that it was not the time for complaints or regrets because we learned that a young boy was killed in the shooting, just outside the UN compound.

Also the SSUM commander, Salaam Maluit, was wounded during the battle³. As for ourselves we had managed to deplete all our water supplies and the prospect of being under siege for a long time was not appealing to any of us. When the electricity came back, we managed to find some reassuring news from CNN: No news from Bentiu or Rubkona that night, only talks of an upcoming war in Iraq!

Praveen and I slept very little that night but we were ready to go first thing the next morning. That night we spoke about our lives in Geneva, exchanged jokes and listened to all noises coming from the bushes. We were in a high state of alert. The fights of two wild cats bothered us because of the screams, which sounded human to our ears.

The morning of the 14 started again with the sun shining over our heads. Everybody, except the team leader, skipped the bucket-shower and did not even think of shaving. We were ready to go to Bentiu to wait there for the arrival of our plane. But as we were ready to enact this plan, the battle resumed. At dawn, we heard trucks full of soldiers and tanks moving on the road. The fact that tanks were on the move was interpreted as a benign sign. We thought that Government forces had decided to step in and take control of the situation. It was another illusion, as well as the overnight lull. At 8:15, fighting broke out again and this time heavy artillery was employed from the beginning. John, the Sudanese in charge of the radio communications, told us (the expatriates) to move quickly out of our compound and reach the compound of “Action contre la Faim”, an NGO whose headquarters was only 300 meters away from us. That was the right move. We tucked ourselves into the cars and left the compound at full speed. We arrived unharmed and found refuge in a much better equipped compound. The fact that they even had an underground bunker made us feel much safer. But for the majority we decided to stay in the main building where we were offered tea and biscuits and we could rest our backs against the concrete walls while the explosions went on. The fighting was intense, with a large use of heavy artillery and machine guns. The battle took place in the Yongyang refugee camp which we had visited the previous day and around the bridge between Bentiu and Rubkona. As I was listening to the machine gun fire I thought of the terror on the faces of those children whom I had seen, weary and weak, the previous morning.

We knew then that we could not leave for Bentiu and its airport and that we had to stay in the compound for a much longer time. The feeling of being under siege was growing more and more unpleasant. Unless other options emerged, we felt cut out from the possibility of being rescued. In the meantime everyone tried to read a book or comic magazines in order to keep our minds focused elsewhere. It was Mabil again who brought us good news. Through the satellite phone he had learned that the Government had given the UN the permission to use a little military strip outside of Rubkona to evacuate our team. That was good news indeed. We only had to wait until the fighting stopped. In fact the fight stopped by mid-morning and the planes took off from Khartoum directed to Rubkona. The NGOs present in the area, gradually became convinced that there was no point staying behind and opted for a land evacuation by convoy.

Our base in Rubkona was quickly sealed off. Only a few local employees stayed behind and we all hoped for the best for them. Mabil and John left with us for Khartoum. The UN and the NGOs had decided that enough risks had been taken and that the relief operations would be interrupted for a while in the south of Unity State, unfortunately at the expense of thousands of internally displaced people.

The airlift was not so easy to organize but it went well in spite of the fact that the airstrip was locked and that we had to go through barbed wires before boarding the two small planes which came to our rescue. At dusk we landed in Khartoum.

Now that I have ordered a second glass of mango juice, I am thinking that perhaps I did not depict well enough the emotions and the characters involved in this story. But the facts are there. This is what I experienced being in the line of fire. This is what is happening in the south of Sudan, in regions still lengths away from any peace talks.

The displaced villagers of the Yanyog camp are under attack almost every day. A large-scale battle such as the one we witnessed is apparently uncommon; but they are often harassed, raped, kidnapped in those same camps where they moved to in order to escape from war. This is what happens in the oil-rich region of western-upper Nile where civilians survive in miserable conditions. They are caught in the crossfire of bullets, promises and threats.

¹ The peace talks are currently ongoing in Machakos, Kenya, between the Government of Sudan and its opposition.
² SPLA (Sudan People Liberation Army).
³ We learned about it as well as about the many other casualties only later when we read the UN security report.