Southern Sudan was marred by civil war with the north for decades. Villages were burned, families slain, children kidnapped. Despite the enemy being “the north”, tens—if not hundreds—of thousands fled to the north, hoping to escape the fighting and violence.
Since the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005, some have returned, although many feared a return to war. In the seventies, a cease-fire was announced, but war returned several years later. Others now feel that the north is their home, despite large-scale reports of being treated as second-class citizens.
But now, on the eve of the south’s independence referendum, many are returning to their homeland. Yet what awaits them is rather uncertain. Walking around the port at Juba, the area is filled by returning families living out in the open, unable to return to their villages.
One man, who fled the south in 1991 for medical care in Khartoum, spent 25 days with his family aboard a barge to return to Juba. His leg massively swollen beneath the nylon blanket under which he sits, despite the three operations he had in the north, he is unable to walk; his children leave the port everyday to try and find food. The mango trees under which these people now live are all stripped of their fruit. Their source of water is the grimy Nile.
“I don’t know what we are doing here” he says. When he was in the north, he says, police would come to his house and take whatever they wanted. His wife worked as a tea-lady, bringing in a small income. But now, he has virtually nothing, and no means to return to his village in Eastern Equatoria state. He had heard rumours that the World Food Programme would be coming to deliver aid to those stranded at the port, and that buses would be taking them home. But for two weeks now, their home has been this piece of ground of the Juba port authority.
Had he registered to vote? No. He wanted to register at home. But registration ended today. His voice in the determination of southern Sudan would go unheard.
