* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Children run and play as the skies above Leer airstrip in Unity State of South Sudan rumble. The clouds swell, it slowly gets grey and the sun retreats. Many children in the conflict prone border areas would not sing for the rain to go away. Roads drink the rains and get overly soggy and impassable, which helps quiet the drums of war. In these places it rains peace.
As the children play they remain oblivious of the growing number of people in their small haven of peace that is taking in humanitarian workers and other community members from neighbouring counties like Bentiu, that have suffered aerial bombardments in the last couple of weeks.
“We were having morning prayers on Tuesday (April 24) when we heard the sound of planes, then a lot of gun fire and blasts. It was clear that Bentiu was under attack,” recalls Moses Ntambara World Vision’s Commodity Officer for Unity State an area that is currently highly vulnerable.
Bombs falling from high-on have no eyes, they can fall on children playing, or people working hard to make their part of the world a better place.
Like World Vision, a couple of agencies including Mercy Corps and Save the Children have had to relocate their staff from Bentiu to neighbouring Leer –which is over 2 hours drive on good road. Time spent on the same road can double when it rains.
In the rainy season, even planes that ferry humanitarian workers to such far away towns will not dare most of the airstrips. “This is not the first time we have had to push a plane stuck in the mud on a run away. In fact if it rains heavily before this plane takes off, it may be days before the ground is strong enough for this flight to materialize,” commented an MSF worker who was part of the community that had come to Leer airstrip to help retrieve a trapped plane recently.
It is in such remote locations that many of the 4.7 million people currently in need of food aid in South Sudan live –nearer the troubled border States, where populations have learnt to live for today, and agencies have prepositioned food.
The situation is made worse by the tough rhetoric and chest thumping across the two countries –Sudan and South Sudan- in a gridlock that threatens to invite the direct involvement of neighbouring countries.
With the oil taps, which usually generate 98% of the country’s revenue, closed a lot is changing. The South Sudanese Pound is struggling to hold ground. “In March US$ 1 earned 3.5 Sudanese pounds, today it is over 4.6 Sudanese pounds to a dollar. A bottle of water that cost 3 pounds a month a go now goes for 4 pounds,” lamented a waiter at Paradise Hotel in Juba.
A state of war and uncertainty threatens to wipe out gains realized during the lifespan of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that paved way for South Sudan’s Independence.
“We are anticipating a heavy war between Sudan and South Sudan,” Mr. William Kuol the Rehabilitation Commissioner for Unity State told officials from World Vision and Save the Children in Bentiu recently.
While it is held that the rains would create a lull in the intensity of animosity, the commissioner is concerned that when the rains fall Unity State is largely inaccessible. “We will be blocked,” he added as he appealed to development organisations to do more in this regard.
In the often under threat Bahr el Ghazel region the rains have filled up river Kiir with water, providing a temporary shield since crossing over won’t be easy for some time.
Community leaders in most parts of the country are worried that conflict and war is delaying development and isolating a generation of children. “After 3pm small boys flood the market. Traders find it easy to send them around on small errands for a small fee, and that way the children are able to go back home with 4 South Sudanese pounds (nearly a dollar),” laments Mr. Walyach Gatkuonth the Leer Country Director for Relief and Humanitarian Rehabilitation.
Mr. Walyach lamented that culture has relegated boy children to be treated like bushmen. They are sent to the wild early in life to fend for themselves as they tend to family wealth (cattle), and by age 15 they are out raiding cows. The girls, on the other hand are nurtured at home, protected and prepared for marriage, which he suggests often comes too early in their life. How would they go to school?
For a nation recording an infant mortality of 102 per 1000 children born; 135 out of every 1000 children dying before their 5th birthday; a country where 80% of girls do not go to school, the sound of war drums is deafening.
The external and internal conflicts are taking their toll on this country that is 2.5 times bigger than United Kingdom. In this country, 3 of every 4 people are under 30 years old and 50% of the population is 18 years and below.
“I remember reading that this country has the most fertile soils in the world, but it has been at war for years and never stopped to exploit its vast wealth. As an organization we are working hard to empower people so they can make the best of the opportunities around them,” says World Vision’s Programme Director for South Sudan, Edwin Asante.
Mr. Asante says the humanitarian and donor communities need to work together to break the pattern of violence, by stopping migration of cattle as well as to venture into mechanized agriculture. “We are exploring options for livestock programming that breaks this cycle of viciousness,” he explains.
Now the youth are being mobilized to defend their borders at a time when they should be opening up more land for planting. Over 90% of the working population is involved in some form of Agricultural activity, and the civil service and other areas engage only 9% of the working population.
Fly over this vast country with a population density of only 13 people per square kilometer and you will want to cry about the opportunity long in waiting.
If the rains bring peace and eventually food, where the two are a rare commodity, let it rain.
