I am in the wrong country right now. I have had this feeling for the last week. I am currently posted in Cairo, writing a report on some field work I carried out over the last few months in South Sudan. My work is not finished. But still. I should not be here.
My family and friends will disagree vehemently. Things are not good in South Sudan. Not good at all. The reasons for it are complicated, but the result is an impending civil war. Ethic divisions have opened into gaping fissures which are claiming an un-guessed number of lives as two of the largest tribes (Dinka and Nuer) begin to eliminate each other under the cover of night. Ethnic cleansing has begun, and no-one can yet see a way to stop it.
Since the 15th December, when a brief skirmish between soldiers of the presidential guard fought one another in the capital, violence has spread across the country. Two of the ten states are now nominally under the control of rebel forces what were previously part of the government's army. Embassy staff from the US and UK have been evacuated. NGOs have fled the country. One UN base closed after being attacked. The UN bases in the capital are sheltering more than 20,000 people, mainly from the Nuer tribe, who found themselves trapped in a suddenly hostile city.
Most of my colleagues have left the country. The international staff were flown out on a cargo plane chartered by a Danish agency, or they took buses to Uganda and Kenya. The South Sudanese staff are not so lucky. The Dinka staff are likely to be safer than most, but those from the Nuer tribe are in terrible danger. My colleague Gunfire (not his real name) is now living in a tent in the largest UN compound in Juba. He cannot leave the country as his wife and children do not have passports.
All this happened in a week. One week! All this, and yet I want to go back. Would you like to ask me if I am crazy? Would you like to ask me what hell I am thinking? I cannot deny that you would be right to ask these questions. It is a crazy notion. There is no moratorium on killing internationals. Agency staff have been attacked and UN soldiers killed. There is a real threat to my safety, so self preservation should be making me feel relieved to be far, far away from it. All of my close friends are safe, so there is no need to go and help them.
The work I am doing now is to be the last project I work on in my current incarnation as a researcher in South Sudan. My contract is finishing soon, and I should be looking ahead for new challenges. As I left Juba airport a few weeks ago, I was comfortable with this thought and the possibility that I would not return. It took this catastrophe wake a dormant feeling of empathy and worry. I lived in this country for a damned year, and I care. I turn on the computer every day and get overloaded with the stories of hell that are surfacing. I have become very well acquainted with an underlying feeling of constant dread that bubbles away underneath every thought and deed throughout my day. Concentration on other tasks is difficult as new bits of information spring to life on the screen, as my fingers type out the address of the news sites without my willing them too.
Is this coming from a sense of duty? Am I feeling a need to return to help those people I know that are still there? I don't know. I can tell you desire to return is strong, illogical and very, very tiring. It is not my home, nor is it my country. But it is my South Sudan. The hills in the south are beautiful. The people are striking, and proud. I have travelled across a large part of South Sudan, and been affected by its problems and trials. Even in my detached state as a Kawadja, I have come to care about it.
South Sudan, what have you done to me? Much more importantly, what the hell are you doing to yourself?
My family and friends will disagree vehemently. Things are not good in South Sudan. Not good at all. The reasons for it are complicated, but the result is an impending civil war. Ethic divisions have opened into gaping fissures which are claiming an un-guessed number of lives as two of the largest tribes (Dinka and Nuer) begin to eliminate each other under the cover of night. Ethnic cleansing has begun, and no-one can yet see a way to stop it.
Since the 15th December, when a brief skirmish between soldiers of the presidential guard fought one another in the capital, violence has spread across the country. Two of the ten states are now nominally under the control of rebel forces what were previously part of the government's army. Embassy staff from the US and UK have been evacuated. NGOs have fled the country. One UN base closed after being attacked. The UN bases in the capital are sheltering more than 20,000 people, mainly from the Nuer tribe, who found themselves trapped in a suddenly hostile city.
Most of my colleagues have left the country. The international staff were flown out on a cargo plane chartered by a Danish agency, or they took buses to Uganda and Kenya. The South Sudanese staff are not so lucky. The Dinka staff are likely to be safer than most, but those from the Nuer tribe are in terrible danger. My colleague Gunfire (not his real name) is now living in a tent in the largest UN compound in Juba. He cannot leave the country as his wife and children do not have passports.
All this happened in a week. One week! All this, and yet I want to go back. Would you like to ask me if I am crazy? Would you like to ask me what hell I am thinking? I cannot deny that you would be right to ask these questions. It is a crazy notion. There is no moratorium on killing internationals. Agency staff have been attacked and UN soldiers killed. There is a real threat to my safety, so self preservation should be making me feel relieved to be far, far away from it. All of my close friends are safe, so there is no need to go and help them.
The work I am doing now is to be the last project I work on in my current incarnation as a researcher in South Sudan. My contract is finishing soon, and I should be looking ahead for new challenges. As I left Juba airport a few weeks ago, I was comfortable with this thought and the possibility that I would not return. It took this catastrophe wake a dormant feeling of empathy and worry. I lived in this country for a damned year, and I care. I turn on the computer every day and get overloaded with the stories of hell that are surfacing. I have become very well acquainted with an underlying feeling of constant dread that bubbles away underneath every thought and deed throughout my day. Concentration on other tasks is difficult as new bits of information spring to life on the screen, as my fingers type out the address of the news sites without my willing them too.
Is this coming from a sense of duty? Am I feeling a need to return to help those people I know that are still there? I don't know. I can tell you desire to return is strong, illogical and very, very tiring. It is not my home, nor is it my country. But it is my South Sudan. The hills in the south are beautiful. The people are striking, and proud. I have travelled across a large part of South Sudan, and been affected by its problems and trials. Even in my detached state as a Kawadja, I have come to care about it.
South Sudan, what have you done to me? Much more importantly, what the hell are you doing to yourself?
