Mud, Mosquitoes and Malakal's Children of War

World Vision UK CEO, Justin Byworth, has recently returned from a trip to see the dramatic, life-threatening impact that the conflict in South Sudan is having on more than half of its population. A few weeks ago he visited Malakal, a sleepy provincial town that has been almost obliterated, where he listened to survivor’s stories.

By Justin Byworth, CEO, World Vision UK

From the air Malakal looks like a sleepy provincial town, nestled along the banks of the Nile with homes, market stalls, hospital and government buildings spread out below the passing shadow of the little Cessna plane we arrived in.

Up close, Malakal is a ghost town still reeling from the violent conflict which saw the town change hands between opposing forces six times in a matter of weeks.   Building after building burnt, shot up and looted.

The population of 160,000 traders, fisherman and farmers are gone, having fled into cramped camps of displaced persons, scattered through an expanse of bush, or refugees in Ethiopia, Uganda or Sudan, still scared to return home to what feels like a garrison town, with machinegun mounted pick-up trucks at junctions and many government soldiers looking happier today than of late as they’re finally paid long overdue salaries.

Amongst the ruined buildings we stop to see World Vision’s old compound where all was stolen or destroyed, as evidenced by the charred remains of motorbikes that were torched.
Amidst the rubble a few leftover posters from a child nutrition project and the office staff notice board look strangely out of place. More troubling by far was the hospital.

Slaughtered in their beds

Previously full with 300 or so patients it’s an empty shell full of signs of the horrors that took place here less than four months ago. Only one of the hospital’s 30 doctors has returned, just this week and it’s he that shows us around, describing what happened in those last days when many sought refuge here from the fighting and patients were slaughtered in their beds. A large pool of dried blood in one room bears witness to this atrocity.

Just a couple of hours later we met Nanyuk, queuing up to register for food distributions in the UN protected camp for displaced persons just outside the town. Nanyuk had been one of those who had sought refuge in the hospital, along with her family.

‘‘They killed people in their beds,” she told us, “We had to jump over dead bodies to escape, we were so scared we ran far – all the way to the border with Sudan and then to Khartoum.

”I came back in May to find those I’d left behind, to find whether they were alive or dead. Some were alive, some were dead, including my brother. Everything was burnt down.” 

The POC

The UN camp is known as the ‘POC’, shorthand for ‘Protection of Civilians,’ as the UN peacekeepers flung open the doors of their compound to protect the thousands fleeing the conflict. There are now 22,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) in Malakal POC living alongside 250 or so UN peacekeepers and humanitarian workers.

It’s a place of mud and mosquitoes, tarpaulins and tents packed into every tiny nook and cranny. The conditions are harsh beyond description with the UN, World Vision and other agencies there fighting a daily battle to overcome the squalor and provide a more humane existence to those who’ve had their lives shattered by war.

The fact that over 20,000 people choose to stay here rather than go home speaks volumes about what they’ve gone through and what they fear outside this safe haven. As one woman told us, “Being here in the water and mud is better than being there in the war.”

Baby Nyamet

This sea of mud is where little Nyamet drew her first breath.

Her mother, Teresa cradled Nyamet in her arms as she told us of her birth two months earlier, “It was raining, water was leaking through the tarpaulin, it was so different to being at home when her brothers and sisters were born, here people are just living in the water.”

Teresa told us how she fled Malakal on Christmas eve.

“It was Christmas, but when the war started the celebration stopped. On December 23rd we heard the first shooting. Then early morning on 24th the fighting started, the crossfire was very serious, I saw three people killed in front of me. We felt safer here but we still heard shooting and even here some bullets fell.”

It’s not an easy place to live and work for the peacekeepers and aid workers either. Small prefab units are gradually replacing the tents that were their homes for months. Although they have more space and better facilities than the displaced South Sudanese, the mud and the mosquitoes don’t differentiate. Security is a daily concern too. A World Vision colleague described a harrowing few weeks when government troops recaptured Malakal.

“It was 6.30 in the morning. I woke to the sound of shooting and mortar attacks. The soldiers were running just the other side of the fence, only 30 feet from my tent and some of the gunfire came into the compound. It happened so fast I didn’t have time to run to the bunker, but lay flat on the ground. I then grabbed my friend and together we ran to the bunker where we spent the rest of the day.”

In the days that followed many vulnerable children, women and men were brought into the camp.

“We had women who’d been raped, children taken at knife point and I remember one man in his 30s who was so malnourished and dehydrated that he couldn’t eat or drink, we had to make up a syringe for him and inject it into his mouth. I’ve never seen grown men or women literally skin and bone before.”

An oasis amongst the mud

In the heart of one of the most crowded, muddiest, dirtiest parts of the camp is one of World Vision’s Child-Friendly Spaces (CFS), an oasis of safety and happiness for the 80 or so young children I met there.  Their simple joy as they play, sing, draw and tell stories is so infectious that the smiles and laughter of their mothers and their teachersare almost as big as the children’s. 

One of the mothers told us, “When it’s raining and the mud is really bad I’m afraid to let my children come here as I’m worried about them getting here, but they still find a way to come whether I like it or not!”

Their pictures speak more powerfully than words of what they’ve been through. Ten year old Taben shows me his two pictures, one of how life used to be in Malakal - a happy home, a school, a boat trip on the Nile , then another of the day they fled - machineguns mounted on pick-up trucks, the neighbour’s house they took shelter in and two soldiers pointing their guns at a very small child.

“He couldn’t survive,” Taben said, “I was very scared, we had to run so quickly past the dead bodies.” 

Six year old Sarah told us, “We feel safe here and we’ve learnt a lot of things, I like learning,” but says she misses her home.

“In Malakal we could go to school, here we don’t even have beds to sleep in, hardly any clothes and I miss my toys that we left behind.” Sarah and little Gala Gala, just three years old, show me the toys they play with at the CFS. Hula-hoop is Sarah’s favourite. A Ben Ten puzzle game is Gala Gala’s.

Playing and drawing are a crucial part of Sarah, Taben and Gala Gala’s recovery.  The World Vision teachers have been trained in working with distressed children and dealing with the difficult and sometimes violent behaviour that they sometimes exhibit out here.

One teacher, Mary, tells us how sometimes children arrive quiet and withdrawn – from unsettled dreams or memories, from problems at home or simply from hunger. 

We meet one five-year-old girl, Shuteer, who’s clearly unwell and unsettled. She hasn’t seen her mother or father in months and doesn’t know where they are or if they’re still alive. She has been cared for by her grandmother ever since the conflict.

Imprinted on my heart

The children of Malakal will stay long in my heart and mind in the weeks ahead as I return home to the UK. The mud and mosquitoes of the UN camp, the empty shell of the town and the faces of Taben and Sarah, Nyamet and Shuteer.

I thank God for the safety and protection that World Vision can give to them and over 1,800 children in our six Child-Friendly Spaces in and around Malakal.

I’ll remember in prayer my extraordinary colleagues living and working in such harsh conditions alongside Taben and Nyamet.

I give thanks too for every act of support and generosity from all those here in the UK who help World Vision save and protect children in the world’s most dangerous places, who help bring hope in places of fear.

Money raised for World Vision's South Sudan appeal will help us continue to reach children like Nyamet and Sarah with the support that they need.