Saving Sudan’s “Lost Mothers”

South Sudan has one of the worst rates of maternal mortality in the world, and within the country, Northern Bahr el-Ghazal state suffers the most, with one in seven mothers dying as a result of child birth.

In the state’s only hospital, a team from Médicins Sans Frontières (MSF) is trying to improve practices so that mothers are not risking their lives whilst trying to grow their families.

The maternity ward is spartan, but with life-saving techniques—and drugs—MSF have reduced the mortality rate from 14% to 0.6%.

When staff at the hospital left us alone with two screaming mothers in labour, I hoped that today, I would not be delivering my first baby, as well as just witnessing my first birth.

Read more here in Jean-Marc’s piece on our trip.

(Inter)national Trade

Sudan’s crucial north-south trade under threat — traveling to Aweil to learn more about the thoughts of northern traders in the south, now that independence is imminent.

De-mining South Sudan

De-mining South Sudan

The past few decades have been dominated by a vicious civil war in South Sudan. Whilst there has been peace since 2005, the hangover from the war still looms.

On the outskirts of Juba, the rapidly expanding city which will soon become the capital of this new nation, those returning to the South after years of conflict are having to share their land with ordinance that caused them to flee.

The task of removing mines and unexploded bombs and artillery, that once rained down on this city, is left largely to NGOs from the international community.

I spent the day with the Mines Advisory Group, working on a piece for AFP. Jean-Marc’s text can be read here.

The calm after the storm

The calm after the storm

The build-up finished, the Sudanese turned out en-masse to vote and the count has been done. Now begins the wait.

There will be no surprises with the result—every indication, and intention is of a landslide—and al-Bashir in the north seems dedicated to accepting the south’s secession.

Much of the press has now left Sudan, and all that remains now of the referendum story, at least, is the announcement of the result.

The Circus

Juba, not the most animated of “cities”, became a bustle of foreign correspondents from the world-over during these early weeks of January 2011. The media’s plat du jour. Although when voting was over, a rather stale taste was left in the mouths of many. The circus rolled into town, and then wondered what it was doing here.

When I arrived in early December, I was issued with press card number 60. The day before voting started, the Southern Sudanese Referendum Bureau had issued around 2000. Juba was exploding with media.

What passes for a quality hotel room in Juba is invariably a container—the porta-kabins of building sites in Europe—which go for ludicrous sums. For those of us on a freelance budget, we were sharing tents or small rooms for the same sum with which I lived in a rather nice Haussmannian apartment in Paris. The starting rates for a container were $80 a night; mediocre meals were $10. Me, I was on the rice-and-beans diet; $1 a pop. Hand-washing laundry in water fresh from the Nile, I was reminded that this is indeed one of Africa’s least developed regions, despite the oases of luxury afforded to NGO, UN and media workers.

The story—the birth of a nation, or a variant thereupon—is strong. In the five decades following independence from British colonisation, the north & south were engaged in civil war for all but 11 years. That ended in 2005 with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which included the right to self-determination; the reason that we all find ourself here in January 2011.

The act itself, though, is not the most scintillating of events. Three million people putting a ballot in a box. The first day, full of colour, was quite a spectacle. Queues had already formed at sunrise; traditional dance troops & joyous voters filled the grounds of the primary voting station in Africa’s soon-to-be newest capital. But following that, what was there really to cover? We engaged in feature stories, capitalising on the media spot-light for Sudan to cover other issues. A seasoned war-photographer with whom I was acquainted was bored out of his mind. “This story is fucking dead.” The clashes or unrest that some predicted, did not arrive. And happily so for the Sudanese.

What’s more, a senator in the US was shot, Tunisia ousted its president, and Australia was ravaged by floods. The calm pace of the “final walk to freedom” was lost in the chaos.

Now, the circus is packing up its tents and leaving. Many will be in Uganda for the forthcoming elections. But come July 9th, the day of independence, Juba will be buzzing again. The beer flowing to the agency expense accounts.