Pray for South Sudan

While we are busy shopping for the remaining names on our list, making a last minute trip to see Santa at the mall, and attending Christmas plays and parties, the hopes and dreams of the people of South Sudan are crashing down around them in a hail of bullets and mortar shells.

The International Crisis Group summarized events that have taken place in South Sudan this way:

Since the evening of Sunday, 15 December, its capital, Juba, has seen rival units of its army, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), fight each other. Armed groups have at the same time targeted civilians based on ethnicity. Violence has spread beyond the capital, including to areas already fraught with ethnic tensions, principally Jonglei state, over which the government may have lost control.

What has for some time been a political crisis within the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) has now spilled over into an army that has long been riven by internal problems, including ethnic divisions and tensions. The blurred lines between these institutions, senior political figures and ethnic communities– as well as wide-scale arms proliferation—make the current situation particularly volatile.

In a report compiled over the past few days, Sudan expert Eric Reeves added further details:

Many hundreds of soldiers have been murdered in Juba by the Sudan People’s Liberation Army in the wake of fighting that began within the Presidential Guard last Sunday; the vast majority of them are of Nuer ethnicity.  Nuer civilians have also been murdered by both the military and security forces.  Word of this will spread quickly to the hinterlands, where the Nuer people are the second largest tribal group in South Sudan.  Some 20,000 civilians have fled from Juba to the UN compounds on the outskirts of the city.

At the same time, there appear to have been murders of Dinka civilians in Juba and more particularly in Bor (Jonglei State), some 200 kilometers north of Juba.  Although reporting has been erratic on developments in this region, the SPLA now concedes that it no longer controls Bor or the two army barracks associated with the town, in which Nuer soldiers distinctly outnumbered Dinka soldiers.  The Bor trading center is reported to be ablaze and fighting has triggered a massive exodus of Dinka civilians, according to the UN Mission in South Sudan.  

Messages from our friends on the ground in South Sudan are also very disturbing. One friend, the Rev. John Daau, pleaded, “Please get up on your feet and intervene with any means you have.” He also described the deterioration taking place in Jonglei State, which had already been suffering from attacks by Khartoum-supported warlord, David Yau Yau.

Daau sent word that the town of Akobo in Jonglei State had been attacked and that all of the civilians seeking shelter at UN compound, particularly the Dinkas, had been killed. Reeves provided further details, quoting Agence France-Presse;

The United Nations said it has lost contact with a South Sudan base that was stormed by attackers Thursday and at least three peacekeepers and civilian staff are unaccounted for. UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said 40 Indian peacekeepers at the base at Akobo in Jonglei state had been moved to a nearby South Sudan army camp, but that three peacekeepers and possibly one civilian worker were missing. The fate of more than 30 ethnic Dinka civilians who had taken refuge at the Akobo base was also not known, Haq added. “We are no longer in contact with the Akobo base,” Haq said. (UN/New York, December 19, 2013)

Shocked by what Reeves described as an “exceedingly brazen attack on a UN base,” those who were seeking shelter in Bor at the UN compound have been also been terrified, understanding that unless the UN exercises a mandate to protect civilians, there is no safety, according to Daau. He said that the attackers were firing off guns over the Bor compound and threatening to enter it and kill all the civilians there.

In an email update today, Daau reiterated that the situation in Bor was “very desperate.” He had learned from his brother who had been safely evacuated to Juba from Bor by the UN that “there are still thousands in the UN compound with food and water supplies gone.” People are sleeping on the ground wherever they can find room.  He added that “the UN is trying to keep the people protected, though there are still rebels roaming around the outside of the compound.”

This is a brief description of the situation on the ground in South Sudan right now. What it does not cover is the devastation felt by so many millions of people in South Sudan and around the world who cannot believe that the hunger for power by the politicians has led to such disaster. Human rights organizations and government entities are now releasing statements of concern and warning for the political players in South Sudan, and the South Sudanese Church has also issued a call to prayer. My next blog post will focus on these responses to the South Sudan crisis. In the meantime, Please Pray for South Sudan.