Experience is a solid walking stick...

The Niles 3
On the run, again
WAn estimated one in ten
South Sudanese have been
displaced by recent fighting
and for many it is not
the first time.
by Charlton Doki
hen fighting spread across some South Sudanese states in late 2013 following
a political struggle in Juba, people ran for their lives. It reminded many of how
the region used to be in the decades of civil war before independence.
During recent fighting the number of displaced people rose to around 1.5
million, or 10 percent of the population, as over a year of conflict erased early
optimism about South Sudan’s independence.
The power struggle, which started with a clash between presidential guards,
revealed that the country was a tinderbox, awash with weapons and plagued by
a militarised political culture. Tens of thousands of people have been killed in
ensuing clashes. Figures from December 2014 show that more than 480,000 people
have fled the country, while another million people have left their homes to try
to find a safer place within South Sudan.
Fighters show a “complete disregard for international human rights and humanitarian
law,” according to an open letter to President Barack Obama written by
14 South Sudanese human rights groups, as well as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty
International, Global Witness, and Humanity United. The groups called on the
president to impose an arms embargo.
Meanwhile, clashes between rebels and government forces continue, with
outbreaks in Bentiu, Nasir, and Maban. Hundreds of people are estimated to have
been killed, and the number of citizens on the move within the young country
continues to climb.
South Sudanese, who often fled into the bush with just the clothes on their back,
have sought refuge at massive camps. Many, like Kakuma in Kenya, Pugnido in Ethiopia,
and Adjumani in Uganda, were formed during what became Africa’s longest civil
war between the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) and the government
in Khartoum, which ended with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005.
These sprawling camp settlements, with their makeshift abodes and rudimentary
health services run by international organisations like Save the Children, Médecins
Sans Frontières, and the American Refugee Committee, have expanded fast. Pugnido
in Ethiopia’s Gambella region is the biggest, forming a temporary home to some
257,887 people. Some have developed into semi-permanent settlements dating from
the last civil war.
And Khartoum has become the final destination of many South Sudanese,
often taken in by extended family networks. According to United Nations data,
neighbouring Ethiopia, especially the Gambella region, Uganda, Kenya, and Sudan,
have all become home to more than 600,000 refugees. They mostly reside in camps
near the border, often with insufficient food, education, and healthcare. Of these,
Ethiopia hosts the highest number of South Sudanese refugees.
And the fighting never ends. Many refugees returned to South Sudan to
vote for independence or to settle in the new state, only to move again, as violence
spiralled afresh.
These days, few of the displaced people can imagine a swift return home.
Extended peace talks in Addis Ababa between representatives of South Sudanese
President Salva Kiir and rebel leader and former Vice-President Riek Machar
have failed to halt the violence. A string of ceasefires were broken within days.
Shortly after clashes broke out in December 2013, Kiir blamed his rival Machar
for plotting a coup, although no evidence was found. But army commanders rebelled
in three states and, over the following year, violence affected a number of other
states, including attacks along ethnic lines between the Nuer and Dinka groups.
Crude oil production, which makes up more than 90 percent of South Sudan
government revenue, has fallen by at least a third during the conflict, as the army
fought rebels in two key oil-producing areas.
The United Nations estimates that thousands more South Sudanese are likely
to seek refuge over the border in Sudan, potentially doubling the size of the South
Sudanese refugee community there.
Despite the ongoing conflict, South Sudan has also taken in refugees from
neighbouring countries. Last year, it became home to some 245,003 registered
refugees, mostly from Sudan, according to a recent update from the United Nations’
refugee agency (UNHCR). This is part of a longer history showing South Sudan
(previously Southern Sudan) has long been both a source and a receiver of refugees.
The area witnessed its most significant influx of refugees following the overthrow
of former Ugandan leader Idi Amin Dada in 1979, when Ugandans sought shelter
from the bloodshed. By 1982 the number of Ugandan refugees swelled to around
a quarter of a million as Amin’s supporters launched a guerrilla war in the northwestern
part of the country in response to abuses committed by the Ugandan
National Liberation Army.
In 1984-5, the UNHCR helped some of the Ugandan refugees to return home.
At this time, Southern Sudan was relatively peaceful and Ugandan refugees settled.
More than 200,000 Ugandan refugees opted to remain on the eastern bank of the
Nile. “Most of the Ugandans had established relatively affluent livelihoods in Sudan
(Southern Sudan), and were unwilling to return to Uganda with all the political
uncertainties,” Jozef Merkx wrote in a UNHCR working paper.
Many stayed in Southern Sudan until rebels led by Yoweri Museveni took
power in Kampala in January 1986, improving security in Uganda. That, combined
with intensified fighting in Southern Sudan in 1988-89, prompted many Ugandan
refugees to return home, joined by thousands of Southern Sudanese.
Ties between populations in Uganda and Southern Sudan date from earlier
generations, in particular the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, partly due to the absence
of Sudan-Ugandan border controls at the time. By the 1940s thousands of Southern
Sudanese had migrated to Uganda to work in the cotton and sugar industries as
Uganda’s economy grew. The movement of these early economic migrants helped
tighten relations between tribes on either side of the border, including the Madi
and Kakwa.
“The relations established during this migration later enabled Southern
Sudanese to settle in northern Uganda,” the UNHCR wrote in its report, entitled
Refugee identities and relief in an African borderland: a study of northern
Uganda and Southern Sudan, adding that they arrived “among their kin when
they had to flee from the civil war in Southern Sudan.” This trend of social
upheaval continues to this day, and, observers warn, looks set to endure in the
foreseeable future.
A single one among millions of Sudanese
and South Sudanese refugees.
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