'I buried my smallest child under a bush':

starvation and sorrow in South Sudan

When Mary Cholil sought food and shelter after her village was torched, her three-year-old
daughter died. In a country ravaged by hunger and conflict, such tragedies have become all
too familiar

The news spreads fast during the day. The raiders are coming. Two columns of fighters,
each thousands strong, armed with assault rifles.

We will fight them. We will take our guns and defend ourselves, says Simon Logocho, a
stall holder in a scruffy market in Pibor, a remote town in eastern South Sudan.

Previous attacks launched in a never-ending cycle of raid and counter-raid by rival tribes
have left hundreds dead and caused widespread destruction. The smaller town of
Likuangole, about 30 miles away, was badly damaged earlier this year, while outlying
villages were obliterated.

The raiders are still some days march away and there is hope they may decide Pibor is too
large and too poor to be an attractive target. There is not much to loot in the town, a few
hundred huts made of plastic and wood scattered between a river crossing and a dirt
airstrip. There are almost no cattle any more, and only one trader retains a few sacks of rice.

Even the poorly armed, ill-disciplined soldiers sent from Juba, the capital, to keep order
and fend off the rebels are hungry. Parents send their children to forage for wild fruit,
berries and leaves, not to lessons.

There is no food. Everyone is hungry. We have nothing left, said Nadia Mayigu, a 32-
year-old primary school teacher.

In a Unicef-supported feeding centre, 12-month-old Peter Ajus is weighed. His mother has
walked for four days to bring him in. Photograph: Jason Burke for the Guardian

But the raiders are hungry too. Last week the UN said South Sudan, which gained
independence from Sudan in 2011, was facing its highest ever level of food insecurity.
About 7.5 million people, almost two-thirds of the population, are in need of humanitarian
assistance. In some areas half the population are malnourished. An appeal by the UN for
more money has faltered, with less than half of the $1.64bn (1.2bn) budget requested for
2017 so far funded.

As elsewhere in Africa where mass starvation threatens, the crisis in South Sudan has been
caused by war, not climatic catastrophe. The country has substantial revenues from oil and
swaths of fertile agricultural land. But corruption and mismanagement have led to
economic collapse, while widespread violence means empty fields, looted seed stocks,

1
displaced farmers and disrupted transport. Pibor, which depends on the road to Juba for all
supplies, has been cut off for months.

As hunger spreads in east Africa, famine threatens to take hold beyond South Sudan. Lucy
Lamble explores the background and response to the crisis
Listen

The crisis in the town has established a hierarchy of hunger.

Few have sufficient resources to be able to eat well, but some can still buy bags of rice at
hugely inflated prices.

Business is OK. There are still some who can pay, says Ibrahim Adam, a trader from
neighbouring Sudan who runs the single stall in the market with a significant stock of food.

Yards away, Juma Gocho, 25, who invested in a jerrycan of cooking oil and a sack of salt a
month ago, sells tiny quantities of each. For weeks this has earned him enough to buy a
glass of flour each day, which he shares among his family.

It stops us getting too hungry, just enough to sleep. But if the road doesnt open soon, my
children will die, Gocho says.

Though the rains have come, turning Pibors all-pervading dust to glutinous mud, it will be
weeks before even those who have tiny plots of land can harvest crops of maize or
sorghum.

Anna Koren, a destitute farmer from Pibor, stands amid crops with her children. They have
no food and the crops wont be edible for several weeks. Photograph: Jason Burke for the
Guardian

The violence in South Sudan is complex. Some fighting pits government forces loyal to
Salva Kiir, the president since independence, against a rough coalition of opposition
groups. Some is motivated by hatred and competition between major ethnic groups such as
the Dinka, Nuer, Shilluk and, around Pibor, the Murle tribes. Some is the consequence of

2
local power grabs as much of the country slips into outright anarchy. Some is simply over
cattle, or food.

But all is accompanied by widespread atrocities committed against civilians, including the
abduction of children, massacres and gang rapes. Aid workers have also been targeted: six
were killed on the road between Pibor and Juba last month. South Sudans leaders have
been accused of deliberate starvation tactics.

The UN peacekeeping mission in South Sudan, which costs $1bn s year, has been
repeatedly criticised for failing to stop such crimes. Since a peace deal between the
president and his main rival Riek Machar collapsed last year, the missions 12,000 troops
have been told to patrol more aggressively and are being reinforced by regional forces. A
detachment of British military engineers has also arrived one of the biggest peacekeeping
deployments by the UK for decades.

But this effort has not halted the flow of desperate people seeking safety on islands, in
swamps, in the UNs overcrowded civilian protection camps, or in neighbouring
countries.

Nor does it reassure the people of Pibor, who are far from certain the 200 Indian troops
stationed there will protect them.

I think they will stay on their base if the raiders come, said Benjamin Korem, 21, an
unemployed administrator.

The UN does distribute vast amounts of international food aid, largely through a hugely
expensive airlift operation. During the rainy season even the few existing roads are
impassable troughs of mud. Though one of the biggest aid efforts in the world, it is still
inadequate, reaching only half of those in need.

Near the bottom of the hierarchy of hunger in Pibor, and scores of places like it around the
country, are people like Mary Kadai, 33. The soldiers wife depends on handouts from

3
neighbours and relatives who themselves have almost nothing to give. I had some things,
some goats, clothes, but everything is gone, Kadai says.

But even she is better placed than those in isolated outlying villages or those displaced by
the ongoing fighting.

In the single feeding centre established in Pibor, supported by Unicef and run by a local
NGO, dozens of women arrive each morning carrying their children. In February, the centre
registered 38 children who were severely malnourished. Last month the total was 256.

Its because of the conflict. Their cattle are killed; sometimes their husbands or brothers.
They have to move and leave everything. They sleep under trees. They eat grass, said
Harrison Jowang, the centre manager.

They tell me of those who have died. There are many of them. The children often die on
their way here, because people come so late They tell me about those who are dying, out
in the villages. There are many of them too.

The full toll exacted by either fighting or the malnutrition it causes in South Sudan is
unclear. So much of the country is without road or telephonic communication that news of
massacres, raids, outbreaks of disease and even the deaths of hundreds of starving children
takes weeks, even months, to reach the capitals and international agencies. A rough count
of those killed by an intensifying outbreak of cholera 250 in the past year is thought to
be a gross underestimate. The truth is that no one is counting the dead, said a veteran
European aid worker in Juba.

One who has not been counted is the three-year-old daughter of Mary Cholil, 31, who died
a month ago as her mother wandered in search of food and shelter near her burned out
village, a five-day walk from Pibor.

All our family is scattered because of the fighting. I learned about the centre too late for
my smallest one. I buried her under a bush, she says.

There is little chance of any immediate improvement for South Sudan. The international
community is distracted by events elsewhere. Regional powers show little commitment to
resolving the shattered countrys problems.

Outside Pibors battered primary school a group of schoolgirls gather as goats are handed
over by an aid agency to the families of former child soldiers. The students form a line and
dance slowly and carefully.

There is no more rejoicing in our country. There is no more moving together in our
country. But in the name of Jesus, we hope for ever, they sing.