Post by Onyango Oloo on Feb 10, 2015 13:16:12 GMT 3
Excerpt:
From the oil fields, we drove on to Leer, largely destroyed by pro-government forces in February 2014. As government forces approached, many villagers in Leer had fled toward the Nile. “Some [of our neighbors] were laughing at us as we prepared to run,” said Ruth, an 18-year-old girl originally from Leer. “But we were cowards for a good reason. Those who stayed were all killed.”
Ruth, and those who had escaped the massacre, spent three months hiding under the trees along the Nile. When government troops eventually attacked their refuge, Ruth and the other villagers hid in the river with water up to their shoulders, at risk of attack by crocodiles and hippopotamuses. For days, they ate fish and water lilies to sustain themselves. Some walked back to Leer to search for food (the villagers had buried grain distributed by the World Food Programme before they fled). It was extremely risky—men were likely to be killed and women raped—and all for naught. “We found all the earth within our burnt house had been dug up,” Ruth told me. “There was no more food.”
NOW READ ON:
www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/africa/horn-of-africa/south-sudan/op-eds/tubiana-an-elusive-peace-in-south-sudan.aspx
