Hundreds flee to island of misery
Civilians crammed onto tiny spit of swampland to escape African country’s civil war
JUBA, South Sudan — Eight years ago, Turuk Gatluak settled on Kok Island, a remote marshland in the vast swamps of South Sudan’s Unity state. He planted palm trees to hold the soil together and grew enough maize, pumpkins and sweet potatoes to feed his wife and three children.
Now South Sudan’s civil war has turned Gatluak’s home into a place of misery. Since July, hundreds of terrified civilians have crowded onto Kok, seeking safety amid the violence that persists despite a peace agreement signed in August.
On Kok Island, dozens of tents jut from the ground instead of crops. About 90 families, up to 900 people, are packed onto the island smaller than a football field. Those who cannot fit underneath the tarps sleep under mosquito nets in the open.
“I told them to stay here with me and if we have to die of hunger, we die of hunger together,” Gatluak told The Associated Press recently. “Why should I live alone when people are dying outside?”
Fighting in Leer County, birthplace of rebel leader Riek Machar, has caused some 20,000 to flee since late August, aid groups say. Kok Island is in Leer County but is the furthest island from the mainland and is protected by miles of swamp.
Many here said they fled because of attacks by government soldiers and loyalist militia. They said soldiers chased civilians into swamps then sprayed bullets into the reeds where people tried to hide.
A recent report by the South Sudan NGO Forum said at least 1,000 civilians were killed, 1,300 women and girls raped, and 1,600 women and children abducted in Leer and two neighbouring counties between April and September. The UN and organizations have noted widespread abuses in South Sudan and have called for independent investigations.
Kok Island smells of urine, feces and rotting fish as people have nowhere to relieve themselves or dispose of waste except near their tents or in the water where they also wash and collect drinking water.
People eat water lilies, fish, and hippo meat to survive. Merchants selling World Food Programme grain have started arriving by canoe from Nyal, a town days by canoe to the south where aid agencies deliver relief food. Aid groups have visited Kok only a few times this year and evacuated Leer County earlier this month.
Ten people have died from disease here since July and four were shot when government troops attacked the island, Gatluak said. The dead were buried alongside the tents.
Many at Kok can’t afford the $20 cost of a canoe ride to Nyal, a better place of refuge.
Three UN agencies warned this week that “extreme hunger is pushing people to the brink of a catastrophe in parts of South Sudan” with 3.9 million people nationwide facing severe food insecurity. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, UNICEF and the WFP called on warring parties to grant unrestricted access to Unity state, where “at least 30,000 people are living in extreme conditions and are facing starvation and death.”
Tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than two million have been displaced since fighting broke out in 2013 between President Salva Kiir’s forces and those loyal to Machar. Kiir is mainly supported by the Dinka group and Machar’s followers are Nuer.
Kok Island farmer Gatluak said he will continue sheltering those who arrive at the outcropping until the war ends.
“These are my people,” he said. “They have to live.”