The worst place to be a child
It’s been 18 months since South Sudan’s warring parties signed a peace deal to end a brutal five-year conflict. But more than half the population still relies on food rations, disease outbreaks are frequent and more than 2 million children do not attend s
When bullets began peppering the South Sudan capital, Juba, the city’s terrorised residents feared their country was returning to civil war. They sought shelter in UN compounds, cowering from the machine-gun and rocketpropelled grenade (RPG) fire, loud explosions and noise of attack helicopters as the 2016 Battle of Juba raged around them.
For New Zealander Fiona Lithgow, the fighting was the lowest point of her six years working in the new African country. About 3000 people, mostly women and children, poured into the World Food Programme (WFP) base where she works from neighbouring Gudele, in the city’s northwest.
They fled for their lives – including a new mother who’d given birth to a son just a few hours earlier.
‘‘It was the worst moment . . . most depressing moment in the job I’ve had here. There were gunships overhead . . . and a lot of people from our local neighbourhood came into the compound for safety. Of course, we let them in.
‘‘We weren’t officially really set up for it, but all of us, we made the best of it.’’
After six decades of conflict, an estimated 1.2 million guns were in the hands of civilians. The humanitarian staff, who do not carry arms, could take no chances. ‘‘Because guns are readily available here in South Sudan, our security officers were patting people down to make sure guns weren’t brought on to the compound,’’ Lithgow says.
The civilians stayed at the compound for four or five days. ‘‘We just made do. We had some commodities, tarpaulins, shelter items . . . we could feed them, but it was difficult.’’
More than three years later, on a sunny December morning, the WFP compound showed none of the scars of that week of terror. International staff chattered over fresh fruit juices and a buffet lunch on the veranda of its cafe, overlooking a tennis court.
Lithgow’s offices are airconditioned and bright, outside decorated with neat rows of bedding plants. Huge maps and charts line the walls.
It is a quiet haven from which she runs a mercy mission saving the lives of thousands of people.
The ravages of war, economic collapse, displacement and poor infrastructure have weakened South Sudan’s ability to cope with protracted crises and sudden shocks. In the first three months of the year, after the seasonal rains, every other person is hungry.
Eighty per cent of the population lives below the poverty line and in 2019 more than half did not have enough food.
Prolonged flooding created a fresh humanitarian crisis – and a new threat hovers just over the border, with the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the grip of its second largest and deadliest outbreak of the ebola virus.
The people of South Sudan depend on aid. And the international humanitarian agencies rely on the United Nations to help them deliver it. It costs US$1.5 billion a year.
The WFP delivers up to 300,000 tonnes of food each year by road, air and river barge. Lithgow manages a logistics cluster, which also delivers nonfood necessities like vaccines, bore pumps, plastic buckets, tarpaulins and blankets.
But it is one of the world’s most difficult jobs. For four years running, South Sudan was ranked as the most dangerous place in the world to deliver aid.
More than 100 humanitarian workers have been killed since the country descended into civil war in 2013.
But 55-year-old Lithgow is unflinching from the danger. Born in Tirau, Waikato, she’s worked for the WFP for a decade, in Sri Lanka, the Philippines and the DRC.
‘‘There’s a large humanitarian crisis here . . . the reason I’m here and my teams are here, is we are focused on . . . the women and the children. They suffer incredibly out here,’’ she says.
It’s only mid-morning and she is already juggling two problems.
Flooding left most of the country’s limited road network impassable for the WFP’s convoys. ‘‘With the roads out, we’re heavily reliant on air. We’ve got a very specialised aircraft here that can land [on] short airstrips, but deliver a lot of cargo compared to a smaller helicopter.’’
But it’s got engine trouble. ‘‘It really dramatically affects our response programme.’’
Within a matter of hours Lithgow has drafted a backup plan with aviation specialists.
Another crucial delivery, 1200 tonnes of aid to Malakal, the second largest city, was in jeopardy. It was due to make the eight-day journey up the Nile by river barge, but inter-clan fighting just 100km north of Juba makes the trip too treacherous.
‘‘We’re trying to work out what we can do,’’ she says. ‘‘You are constantly thinking on your feet. That’s a part of the job I love.’’
Across the city, at a protection of civilian (POC) camp attached to the UN House base, Lam Deng Luak is preparing lessons in his office. The 43-yearold is the principal of Future High School. Up to 300 children are educated in seven classrooms.
He isn’t paid for his work, and the school survives on small, monthly donations from parents to buy chalk and textbooks. Like everyone in the camp, he feeds himself with rations from WFP.
‘‘Some [of the children] are living without parents, some they don’t know where their parents are.’’ South Sudan has one of the highest proportions of out-of-school children in the world.
‘‘Nobody’s paying us, but the job is satisfying us because we are helping others to be ready for future careers.
‘‘This is what is motivating us. We operate independently, without any assistance from NGOs [non-governmental organisations],’’ he says proudly.
But when it comes to exam time, the UN and humanitarian agencies step in to help.
Buses are chartered by the UN’s Children’s Emergency Fund to transport the students to exam halls across the city. They are accompanied by force protection soldiers and police.
The aid agencies provide refreshments. Some of Luak’s pupils have gone on to university, a source of deep pride for him. ‘‘There is hope here.’’
Half a century of war has obliterated almost all of South Sudan’s basic services: healthcare, clean water, sanitation and education.
In the absence of a functioning government, NGOs, facilitated by the protection of the UN, provided humanitarian relief during the conflict and its aftermath.
Almost 200 organisations are providing emergency operations in the country.
There was hope that peace would bring prosperity. The international community would prefer to invest in South Sudan’s future: raising the population out of chronic poverty by restoring livelihoods, ensuring safe water, promoting social cohesion, training teachers, nurses, midwives and doctors, and introducing immunisation, medical supplies, and schools.
But sporadic ethnic conflict regularly sees local people caught in the crossfire and 200,000 remain in POC camps. Another 2 million live in refugee camps in neighbouring countries. Millions need emergency food assistance and in 2019 about 1.7m people were at risk of acute malnourishment.
The weakened health system cannot cope with disease outbreaks. But alleviating suffering in South Sudan presents huge challenges.
In the rainy season, 70 per cent of roads are waterlogged. Access to certain areas is controlled by up to 70 distinct armed groups who steal and sell food and medical supplies, or cut off aid to punish rival or ‘‘disloyal’’ communities. Even the myriad official processes are inconsistent and confusing at local and national levels.
‘‘The bureaucracy can be challenging in this country,’’ Lithgow says.
‘‘It can be incredibly costly, which adds money on to humanitarian items. So we are getting less for every dollar because you’ve got to pay demurrage fees or it takes weeks,
if not months, to clear critical health items.’’
World Vision works alongside the WFP to provide emergency food and has reached close to 300,000 people.
The charity is also fixed on reducing malnutrition through health clinics, teaching families how to grow crops that can be harvested more than once a year to provide food all year round. About 1000 households are supplied with seed, vegetable and fishing kits.
In Juba, they run a ‘‘cash for training’’ initiative – a parent receives a small sum to feed their family, in return for attending weekly vocational training.
And in Yambio, the charity is based in a refugee camp which shelters people from the DRC, Sudan and the Central African Republic.
Catherine Belfield-Haines is a programme manager, based in Auckland, and has made four trips to South Sudan. Much of World Vision’s work there is funded through Children in Crisis, a monthly $1 donation scheme.
‘‘Because of the conflict, there is a generation of people that have just not had access to education,’’ she says. ‘‘We take for granted access to the doctor – most of the people I have met in my travels have not had that opportunity. So how do you grow up when your life has been quite chaotic?’’
For Owen Calvert, a project manager from Central Otago, honey is a powerful symbol of what could be in South Sudan.
He has worked for the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Juba for two years.
As part of a ‘‘livelihood diversification’’ programme, the FAO has introduced modern hives and trained apiarists.
In South Sudan, wealth is counted in cattle, not cash. The culture of the largest tribes glorifies cows. In a place where banks collapse, a herd is a reliable way to secure assets.
For generations, tribes have fought over cattle, water and grazing rights.
Now the herders are armed with military weapons and although the political elite signed a peace agreement in 2018, the number of cattle raids and tit-for-tat massacres has only increased.
But while they confer social status and prestige, the cattle are not productive. They are not killed for meat, or milked on a significant scale.
So, the FAO is visiting cattle camps to train herders in basic veterinary and husbandry skills with a view to making their animals more economic.
‘‘[FAO wants] to encourage a more diversified livelihood for the communities we work with, increase their agricultural productivity, and look at their natural resources and how they can better manage those . . . we work very much at the community level,’’ Calvert says.
Its experts are also improving agricultural practices and postharvest handling.
‘‘We’re also introducing new technologies to store grain. I spoke to a farmer this time last year and he lost about 50 per cent of his production before he could eat or sell it.
‘‘That really hit me hard. So we’re introducing hermetically sealed bags that will prevent that grain from deteriorating due to moisture or insect attack.’’
Water storage is another concern for FAO, which is establishing boreholes, and hafirs, large earthen basins to capture rainfall. The country is criss-crossed by rivers, including the White Nile, and endures a lengthy rain season, but suffers from regular water shortages. The government says nearly 80 per cent of its people don’t have access to clean water – and climate change is driving up temperatures, exacerbating drought.
‘‘This place has so much potential,’’ Calvert says. ‘‘There’s a huge amount of land, it’s got good growing conditions, agriculturally, and fishing. So I see there’s a lot of hope. There’s obviously the political and security issues that need to be addressed.’’
Calvert previously worked in Somalia and witnessed the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu, immortalised in the film Black
Hawk Down, from his rooftop. Part of his role in South Sudan involves working with 500 former child soldiers.
Two years ago, the country had one of the largest number of child soldiers in the world. Although thousands were demobilised last year, they received little rehabilitation and are prone to anxiety and depression. And an alarming report by the UN Commission on
Human Rights, published in August, warned that recruitment into militias was increasing. Despite the peace deal, there is suspicion that both sides are seeking to bolster infantry numbers should the uneasy truce be unpicked.
‘‘In collaboration with Unicef and WFP we’re supporting these groups of children and their families to re-establish them in the mainstream community. Unicef is providing basic literacy skills, WFP has been providing some food assistance and we’re providing livelihood support and offering opportunities for different enterprises such as vegetable production, beekeeping, blacksmithing.
‘‘I would hope that through this project, families would be able to invest in other productive assets, be it a bicycle or an ox plough, that could then increase their productivity and their income [and then] afford to send those children not just to primary school, but maybe high school, to take them on to university level.’’
South Sudan is the worst place in the world to be a child. But the country’s aid agencies are staring down another looming crisis: donor fatigue.
The world has grown weary of the grinding war and protracted crises, and the government makes it difficult for journalists to visit, which means its tragedy goes unreported: forgotten and neglected.
‘‘Human life is human life, I don’t make the distinction between South Sudan or any other part of the world,’’ New Zealand’s David Shearer, head of the UN Mission in South Sudan, says.
‘‘People that I meet still love their kids, and they still have all the hopes and dreams that we all have as people. Sometimes you gotta pinch yourself and say ‘hang on a second, this is horrific, why isn’t this getting more attention?’ And it’s because it’s in South Sudan.
‘‘It’s a lack of visibility. There’s no journalists here that will see it. I think it’s also a bit of, well, you know, South Sudan, what do you expect? It’s one of those places.’’
Lithgow takes advantage of the dry season to plan for more expected flooding later in the year. Her teams pre-position equipment, rations and essential items in at-risk areas.
‘‘We need to get as much cargo out in the field because the roads will start opening and we need to push cargo out. It’s far cheaper than flying around helicopters, [in the rainy season] which are incredibly expensive.
‘‘It’s all about efficiencies. The humanitarian response programme out here is about US$1.5 billion a year now, and while it is being very generously funded by all of our donors, it’s not fully funded.’’
She makes an impassioned defence of the programme, which moves Taban Kenyi, a UN press officer from Juba, to emotion.
‘‘We can’t give up on South Sudan,’’ she says. ‘‘Don’t give up on South Sudan, we will all get there. If we leave, that’s very dark for South Sudan.’’