December 15, 2016 marked three years ever since violence broke out in South Sudan, Africa’s 54th and the world’s youngest state.
What started as a political contest between President Salva Kiir and members of his SPLM party soon escalated into armed war that drags on with no end in sight. A civil war majorly fought along ethnic lines has uprooted more than one million people from their homes to neighboring countries, especially Uganda.
Meanwhile, about three million others are displaced within the country, including at least 200,000 sheltering in United Nations Protection of Civilians sites. BAKER BATTE LULE was in Juba when the first shot was fired, and recalls the night the euphoria of a new nation ended.
It is Saturday December 14, 2013 and I’m at home, not thinking of going out for anything. I am relaxing with colleagues after a long and exhausting week full of political and military jockeying.
Around midday, I receive a call from my boss telling me to cover the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement party (SPLM) national convention taking place at the Nyakron cultural center in Juba. I shrug a bit because my mind is not in working mode, considering it is a Saturday, my day off.
But after some consideration, and reflecting on the previous week, I reluctantly agree to attend. I recalled the electrifying December 6 press conference where SPLM top honchos led by Riek Machar spat fire, accusing Kiir of being a despot, and the rebuttal that came in handy from the flamboyant vice president, James Wani Igga, two days later, accusing the Machar group of being disgruntled and corrupt only coming out against Kiir because they had been fired. I prepare to go and rub shoulders with the who-is-who in the country’s ruling party.
I arrive at Nyakron Cultural Center a stone’s throw away from Kiir’s office. Security is unusually tight, access restricted. With a lot of haggling and frantic phone calls, I’m allowed to get near the venue – but far enough from the meeting room.
Fair enough, I say to myself, at least I can interact with a few delegates moving in and out of the meeting. Moments later, I saunter out before even the convention ends. By then, though, I have been told of the verbal exchanges between Kiir and the Machar group that nearly ended in physical confrontation.
SUNDAY DEC 15
Like the Machar group that had lost on many of their crucial points, I don’t bother going back to the meeting, partly because I have an end-of-year party to attend later in the afternoon.
At the party, all is well; we eat, we drink. It’s soft drinks for me, but I I can’t convince my colleague, who guzzles hard drinks to immerse himself into the night.
By 9:30pm, the guy is gulping bottle after bottle. I get worried when it approaches 10pm owing to the fact that people at home don’t know my whereabouts and my phone is off. With a lot of haggling and threats of walking back home, my friend caves in.
He is drunk and tired but insists on driving, ignoring my offer to do the job. Somehow, he manages – albeit not without incidents, as he almost gets involved in three different accidents. Obviously, he is not aware of the rule: ‘Don’t drink and drive.’
On the road, you feel the tension and uncertainty. The vehicles are very few, as are pedestrians. Getting home, I find the whole neighborhood has gone to sleep. The usually-noisy bars and video halls are dead. Not bothered, I let everything slide to the back of my mind and slope home ready to jump into my bed.
In my compound, everybody is very worried about me. I guess for no good reason, after all it is not the first time that I have come back after 10pm. Anyway, I explain to them what has happened. Just as I finish closing the door behind me, the guy with whom I was, calls asking whether I’m at home and particularly in the house. I say yes.
Immediately his phone goes dead. That’s all he wanted to know. Suddenly, as if on cue, all hell breaks loose. Juba is drowned in all sorts of bombings only seen in movies, maybe also in Syria and Iraq.
At first I think that it is the usual firing by either drunken security officers or security running after thieves – common phenomena in Juba. But from the intensity and persistence of the shooting into the morning, this is clearly not excitement or criminality. I attempt to telephone my trusted sources in the military but in vain. All phone lines are dead.
As a journalist I, too, am dead. I can’t communicate. I don’t know what is happening. No one knows. My roommates ask me, for they think the journalist should know. Nothing!
MONDAY DEC 16
Two of my neighbors have been murdered and no one is at their homes to mourn them. This morning, I’m supposed to have an interview with the deputy head of UNMISS, Toby Lanzer. This interview was scheduled some days earlier. I call Toby’s media handler, Claire Santry.
She tells me it is extremely unsafe for anyone to move out and that they have been advised to remain at their residences until the situation is studied properly and conclusions made. She pushes the meeting to another day if the situation improves. (It never improved and the meeting never happened as Toby’s priority shifts to humanitarian aid response plans.) She asks whether I know what is happening, I tell her I’m as green as she is.
A few hours later, I get a phone call inviting me to a presser by President Salva Kiir, who is to shed light on what is happening in the country. Security is extremely tight along all the roads leading to the presidential office. Mr Kiir, in his full military attire, tells scribes that his former deputy Riek Machar, with others, had tried to overthrow him.
TUESDAY DEC 17
I move around the streets of Juba to see what is happening. The streets normally bustling with people plying their different trades are empty. All the shops and major markets are closed. You only see uniformed people driving like crazy in all sorts of cars. From BMWs, to V8s to Land Cruisers to small cars to police and SPLA trucks all laden with soldiers brandishing all sorts of weapons.
It is quite a spectacle seeing people you have known for a long time as civilians now clad in full military fatigues with the famous Kalashnikovs. Suddenly, this is a war zone meant only for the strong-hearted. Yesterday, the frail and the vulnerable were seen with luggage on their heads.
On foot and all sorts of locomotives, they poured into UN compounds and into villages outside Juba. Others moved out of the country altogether. In my neighborhood, only about five houses still have people.
The security situation continues to be very fragile throughout the coming days and news of the falling of Bor, Malakal and Bentiu – capitals of Jonglie, Upper Nile and Unity states –trickles in.
Initially, Riek Machar, on the run, had told BBC radio that he never attempted a coup, and that the narrative is being coined by government to discredit him. However, he acknowledges that he is leading a resistance against Kiir’s government and that it’s a matter of days before his forces walk to Juba. This will not happen, not with the UPDF joining the battle immediately, and pushing back Machar forces.
THURSDAY DEC 19
I visit Juba hospital to see firsthand how they are coping with the crisis. It’s heart-wrecking. All kinds of patients –children, pregnant women, men, soldiers, civilians – are lying on the floor in harrowing pain due to gunshot wounds. I can’t see anyone attending anyone.
The hospital is ordinarily under-staffed, but it now stretched to breaking point. The blood bank is empty and there are no ready blood donors. Being a regular blood donor, I suspend my journalism to donate blood, hoping it can save a life. After donating half a litre of my blood, a one litre of Splash mango juice and a T-shirt are also donated to me to ‘replenish’ what I have lost.
FLOWING MORTUARY
At the mortuary, I am welcomed by a terrifying sight and piercing stench. The now-dilapidated morgue has bodies packed like firewood. The refrigerators are dead and no one is claiming the bodies. It’s frightening to the thin-hearted. Days later, these bodies are bundled in military trucks en route to mass graves.
There are no tombstones here – signs of euphoria-turned-tragic-mire.
FRIDAY DEC 20
I am mourning. Confused. Angry. Some of my colleagues belonging to the Nuer tribe were targeted simply because they are members of their tribe. It is heartbreaking and unexplainable how, in a matter of days, neighbors turned against each other simply because they don’t belong to the same tribe.
Lost in these futile thoughts I wander around Juba – to know what else is happening. I’m caught up in crossfire at the Airport road near the presidential office. I can’t explain what prompts the shooting that lasts more than 30 minutes.
When it dies down, I summon all the courage I can muster to get out of my hiding ground (inside someone’s compound) and walk back home. I’m terrified! On the road, I’m the only civilian; Quite a feat.
Three years later, I think, in pain, about the close to 100,000 people so far killed by politicians proud to have liberated the same country they are destroying.
bakerbatte@gmail.com