11/12/2012 - Suffering is ever-present in South Sudan, the newest African country. One in nine children do not reach their fifth birthday. Many mothers never know their children because they die in childbirth. Many children living in the SOS Children's Village in Malakal have lost their mothers and do not know their fathers. The SOS families are a last place of refuge for them, something that many other children in South Sudan do not have.
Malakal was one of the last towns held by the government in Khartoum in a twenty-year war between the north and south of Sudan. The prolonged period of fighting came to an end seven years ago, leaving two million dead. However, there are still violent attacks between different tribes, clashes over rights to water and land and serious border conflicts. Malakal, now the capital of the South Sudanese federal state of Upper Nile since independence in 2011, is a holding centre for thousands of refugees - South Sudanese who come from the Sudan, fleeing from the disputed border regions.
The suffering in South Sudan is incalculable. The long war put a stop to all development. There is not enough of anything except too much rain in the rainy season and too much drought in the dry season. Very high rates of illiteracy, appalling child and maternal mortality, malnutrition, endemic malaria, around 120 km of paved roads and no rail network in a country almost as large as France.
SOS Children's Village with bullet holes
Malakal is also home to an SOS Children's Village which has only been in operation for ten years but is a reflection of the desperate conditions in the country. In South Sudan there are almost no building materials, everything has to be imported at great cost, the transport routes are interminable and nothing happens in the rainy season. The climate, unreliable construction companies and the political situation have affected the residential buildings badly. In 2011 SOS families had to move temporarily to the Nile Palace Hotel because of fierce fighting between government troops and militias right in the middle of the SOS Children's Village. Since then the houses are riddled with bullet holes, the furniture is destroyed, there is not a single intact window and the roofs leak.
"Even the front door was shot to pieces so that we couldn't close it properly anymore," related Nadyang Kon, one of the very first SOS mothers in Malakal. Nadyang belongs to the Shilluk tribe, her forehead is decorated by a row of round raised scars. "That was done with a knife when I was 15. This tradition of scarification has almost disappeared from the towns but it is still practised in the country," Nadyang explains.
The job of an SOS mother is a very challenging one in any situation, but in South Sudan it makes even greater demands on the women than normal. "Life in Malakal is hard. Although the hospital has some medicines, people have no money to be able to buy them. Many women are malnourished; they are weak and suffer from anaemia. This is the reason that so many of them die during childbirth," according to Nadyang.
The SOS families in Malakal are home to 100 children including nine from Nadyang's family. For example, there are the twelve-year-old twins Nyangah und Nashyan whose mother died after their birth and whose father disappeared. Two-year-old Kimo shares the same story, although his father comes to visit him once a year. Or Akeich, aged 18 months, whose mother also died when he was born and whose father is unknown. Akok, only two months old, was very weak on arrival but is now recovering. His mother also died during birth in a remote village. Or Nyabol, 14 years old - her mother is a widow with no money and no work; she comes to visit from time to time. Such is the fate of children all too often in South Sudan.
Shortages everywhere
Then there is the fate of the innumerable refugee children from South Kordofan and Blue Nile and those children who returned home after the declaration of independence - with or without their families. Many refugees are stranded in huge camps in the middle of nowhere, many end up in transit stations such as the one known as Way Station in Malakal where some get stuck for years because their land is occupied by others and they have no other options. Most refugee and returning families have absolutely nothing, often not even pots and pans. The children are starving or malnourished, cannot attend school, are traumatised and suffer from malaria.
In the rainy season the stream of people from the north dries up, but now in the dry season numbers are expected to rise again. In Malakal, SOS Children's Villages runs two "child friendly spaces", as they are called, children's centres where hundreds of children are looked after daily from morning till afternoon. There they are able to play, sing and dance, they learn to read and write English which has become the official language, but most only speak Arabic and their tribal language. As many children are malnourished or undernourished, there is also daily porridge with milk and psychosocial help for the psychological damage they have suffered. August was like Christmas when the children received toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap, towels and bags for their few belongings.
After malaria had spread, especially amongst the returning refugees, and because children under five and pregnant women are particularly at risk, SOS Children's Villages, working in cooperation with the ministry of health, set up three health centres in tents and appointed three nurses. 9,000 people were treated there in only three months. It is still not clear how this can continue as the ministry lacks the necessary financial means and so far no other NGO has been able to take over the centres. As everywhere in South Sudan, there is a correlation here between the people's suffering and the lack of material resources.
School classes with up to 200 children
SOS Children's Villages will continue to run the children's centres and look at how to help those most in need along with the authorities and other aid organisations. But the SOS Children's Village in Malakal desperately needs renovation, as does the entire public infrastructure in the area. While the children in the SOS families have a home - with bullet holes - their future prospects are poor if things remain as they are. "The older ones often cry because they miss their mothers. Some children are Dinka, some Shilluk and others come from the Nuer tribe. They speak Arabic and their own tribal language. They all go to school but the schools in Malakal are not good. The schools are poorly equipped, there are too few teachers and the pay is abysmal. There are classes with 200 children," said SOS mother Nadyang, describing the intolerable conditions. And if children get seriously ill, then they have to be taken a long way to hospital where the hygiene standards and medical equipment are totally inadequate.
But all children in South Sudan really need the prospect that things will get better. Because up until now it is only a tiny minority who are faring well.