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Maendeleo Vijijini
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Thousands of people at the epicentre of a
man-made famine in South Sudan emerged from the safety of the swamps
this past weekend hoping to receive emergency deliveries of food.
For
months now Bol Mol, a 45-year-old former oil field security officer,
has struggled to keep his family alive, spearfishing in nearby rivers
and marshes while his three wives gather water lilies for food.
They eat once a day if they are lucky, but at least in the swamps they are safe from marauding soldiers.
"Life
here is useless," Mol said, his hand clutching his walking stick as he
waited with thousands of others beneath the baking-hot sun at Thonyor in
Leer County.
FOOD DELIVERIES
Aid agencies have negotiated with the
government and rebel forces to establish a registration centre in the
village ahead of food deliveries.
The
UN declared a famine in parts of South Sudan a week ago, but the hunger
affecting an estimated 100,000 people is not being caused by adverse
climate conditions.
More than three
years of conflict have disrupted farming, destroyed food stores and
forced people to flee recurring attacks. Food shipments have been
deliberately blocked and aid workers have been targeted.
It
is no coincidence that soaring levels of malnutrition have been found
in Leer, a rebel stronghold and the birthplace of opposition leader Riek
Machar, whose falling out with President Salva Kiir in December 2013
led to the civil war.
IT IS NOT ENOUGH
Evidence
of the devastating conflict is everywhere: in the burnt walls of
schools and clinics, in the ruins of razed homes and public buildings,
and in the desolation of the once-thriving market.
A
peace deal signed in August 2015 was never fully implemented. As
recently as December the members of yet another 56,000 households were
forced to flee to the safety of the swamps when yet another government
offensive reached the area.
The
constant need to escape the war means people are unable to plant or
harvest crops, and their livestock is often looted by armed men.
With
their livelihoods destroyed, people are reduced to gathering wild
plants, hunting and waiting for emergency food supplies that come too
rarely and are frequently inadequate.
"It is not enough," Mol said as he waited to register for the next food delivery.
INTERRUPTED LIFE
The
fighting and the fleeing have interrupted all aspects of life: Mol said
his children had not gone to school for the last three years.
"Right
now the majority of the people are living in the swamps. If you go
there and see the children you can even cry, the situation is too bad,"
he said.
Nyangen Chuol, 30, keeps her
five children alive with aid agency rations of sorghum supplemented
with lilies, coconuts and sometimes fish.
"Before
the conflict I lived here in Thonyor but had to move far away to the
islands in the swamp for safety," she said. This weekend's registration
for food deliveries had drawn her back.
Outside
the famine's epicentre in the northern Unity State, there are nearly
five million people who also need food handouts, mostly in areas where
the fighting has been fiercest.
"The
biggest issue has been insecurity in some of these areas which makes it
very difficult to access," said George Fominyen of the World Food
Programme (WFP).
TOO LATE FOR SOME
Aid
workers warn that by the time a famine is declared it is already too
late for some, but the declaration has put pressure on the government to
open up access, at least for now, and international aid agencies are
ratcheting up their efforts.
Ray Ngwen Chek, a 32-year-old waiting for food, said the situation had steadily worsened over the years.
"Since
2013 we have planted no crops, nothing, we just stay like this. You
don't know what you will survive on tomorrow," he said.
Hospitals
and schools are shut, Chek said, and children, surrounded by conflict
and with no other options, "are practising how to carry guns" instead of
learning for the future.
Betrayed
and neglected by the country's leaders, the people of Leer struggle to
hold out hope for a political solution that would end the conflict.
But Chek is certain of one thing: "Fighting is not a solution."
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