Bentiu

My mission to Bentiu with our consultant photographer, Martine was only ever going to be about gaining a better understanding of the country I am living in. As I flew back on a UN flight to Juba I certainly felt like I packed a lot in over those four days. It was a series of firsts for me. Just the travelling was interesting. Many UN staffers take these UNHAS (United Nations Humanitarian Air Service) flights all the time, on older aircraft with UN white livery as they travel back and forth from the regions to Juba to take their international flights out of the country, or to visit field offices, or vice versa, HQ offices. The plane was a fairly stand looking turbo prop, manned by a Spanish crew. The seats were a bit old and they didn’t recline, but the handsome Spanish cabin crew happily made coffee on request and there was a toilet, so no complaints.

Just four days “in the field” as we say and I felt I would miss it, particularly aspects of it. It was especially great to travel through communities, visit schools and government buildings and talk to South Sudanese people. I barely do this normally accept with my immediate national staff colleagues. It also gave me a new-found appreciation for living in Juba and in our Tomping camp. In Bentiu there is a distinct shortage of food. We took a whole lot of vegetables and fruit up and it was well appreciated. They have one cafeteria on site and it serves very basic food. They had not been able to offer coffee or water for a week by the time we arrived. This is contrast to our technically five different eateries in Juba. Bentiu is a dust bowl, the fine cotton black soil turns to fine dust by the time the hot season reaches its climax and gets everywhere. Your nose itches and your eyes sting by the end of the day. Perhaps you get used to it, but I wouldn’t want to. I looked forward to closing my eyes in the evening. The two main mobile networks, MTN and Vivacell don’t work at all and the Zain network only seems to really allow you to call and text. Big kudos to staff based in Bentiu permanently and to think that apparently Wau is even worse. When I met a UN staffer on Sunday preparing to go out to Bentiu to take up a regular posting there, I said little and wished him luck. There are four principle UN bases outside of Juba, Bentiu, Bor, Malakal and Wau, with a smattering of temporary and forward operating bases.

We stayed in the camp of one of our contractors, TDI, and this really made the experience more real. I cannot remember the last time I stayed in a tent. We then, obviously, had outside toilets called long drops and showering was done by a bucket (known as a bush showr), often with half the children from the PoC watching and shouting “kawaja” (white person). There were two very cute resident dogs and one cat and plethora of support and cleaning staff who I feel must spend half their time just battling the dust. But we were made to feel so welcome and in the evenings we got tasty basic food and a particular treat in the form of coffee made with ginger and cloves. Yum.

The two things that really struck me from the visit to the North was the level and extent of services that the UN was providing at the Protection of Civilians site and then the destruction of Bentiu Town itself and then the oil fields to the North. My understanding is that Bentiu had once been a busy and bustling town, supporting the nearby oil industry. You drive through it now and it looks like a place long forgotten and littered with the remnants of war, burnt out cars and buildings. You can’t really buy anything to speak off, the main drag is now just a dust strewn stretch of road with the odd shop selling soda and if you are lucky some beer. Hundreds of plastic bags, caught on the grass and scrub, flutter in the wind like street fair bunting on a gusty day. We visit two ministry buildings which had been cleared by UNMAS and they had heavy signs of artillery fire and gun shots. The Minister of Finance, who was dressed in an immaculate suit and was just twenty years of age, sat in an office with a huge whole in the wall. You could not have made it up. There were long queues at the WFP Food Distribution Site. Famine has just been declared in two of the counties that make up the old Unity State. Bentiu’s fall from grace has been a tough one.

Myself and Martine, a super enthused French Australian from outside of Perth, we there to photograph key mine action activities. These activities often involve painstaking survey and walking over of areas of land to ensure they are free from explosive hazards. These include mines which are still being found in South Sudan from a civil war that first started in 1955, but increasingly involves removing what are known in the sector as unexploded ordnance (UXO). A UXO can be a grenade, a morter, or a rocket, but we also clear small arms ammunition. North of Bentiu we spent time watching mine detection dogs and large rolling machines clear a stretch of road and in one barracks, deminers were raking through the remnants of an explosive stores that had set a light and send weapons flying in every direction for a wide radius.

Perhaps one of the most engaging moments was watching the Mine Risk Education (MRE) being delivered in the Protection of Civilian site in Bentiu where one of our partners the Danish Deming Group delivered animated sessions on how to avoid the risks of explosive habits. This took place in a primary school that was catering for some 6,500 pupils. As you walk through the PoC as it is known you see people in the most wretched conditions. I was often surrounded by children with dry cracked hands, running noses and very soiled clothes. They just wanted to stroke my hand and pull the hairs on my arm. The scene was desperate, but at the same I felt admiration for the space the UN had created for these IDPs, the education they were currently receiving and in some cases the rations that had kept them alive. There has been much criticism of the UN, quite rightly, of its ability to protect civilians in certain circumstances, but my goodness it is a complex task. The system of PoC sites in South Sudan I understand is unique within the UN System and a decision was taken back in December 2013 when citizens knocked on the gates of the Peacekeeping Mission to let people in, unconditionally. The fact of the matter remains that while there are some 215,000 individuals in the PoCs this figure could rise and rise and the UN and the humanitarian NGOs would just have to find a way. I am imagining in those difficult early days, staff had to dig deep to keep things afloat.

The MRE sessions that I watched and Martine photographed felt like momentary respite in otherwise grinding conditions. The particular DDG facilitator just brought the subject to light and the children in the morning and the adults in the afternoon were engaged. They laughed and enthusiastically stuck their hands up, they challenged him and they participated.

Back in Juba now, I am very glad to have my redecorated container, food options and concrete pathways, but as I expected, going out to “the Field” helped me appreciate these things. This will probably last until my next R&R when I am saying to myself “get me out of here”, but I can remember those Bentiu sites. South Sudan has such a lot of potential and chatting to farmers south of Juba today highlighted that, but the country needs a sustained period of peace. Martine was asking if there was a Museum of South Sudan and I said no, there is nothing of the sort. When there is peace and security we will get a museum, maybe even a zoo!