Sudan
By LT Andrew Wilson RNZN
In the Sudan (as I write in December) we are well in the grips of the winter dry season. I would say ‘cool season,’ but 43˚C is not actually that cool ! I first arrived in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital city, some three months ago. The contrast to New Zealand was extreme. Yet more contrasts were to come, as Khartoum was a stepping stone to my actual Area of Responsibility (AOR), which is Team Site Bentiu in Southern Sudan.
The United Nations is in Sudan at the request of the Sudanese Government, and NZ is supporting the UN by providing three NZDF personnel. The NZDF involvement began in 2005, when a Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed between the warring Northern and Southern Sudanese forces. MAJ Terry McDonald is our current NZ SNO and LTCDR Laurie French is the other Kiwi UNMO, located in Sector II, Rumbek.
The UN is running an Integrated Mission here in Sudan and which means it’s not a military-led Mission but has all facets of the UN within it, such as human rights, protection of civilians, and electoral assistance (and other aspects) all working towards their specific directives, but under one umbrella structure.
We, the UN Military Observers (UNMO), are the UN’s eyes on the ground. We have freedom of movement within our AOR and together with our assigned National Monitors go on patrols to gather information on the security situation, food and medical status and, more recently, the Electoral Process. My role is to monitor and verify the peace agreement within my AOR. This is done by short-range patrols, long-range patrols (where we load up the 4x4 and disappear into the wilderness for days on end) or by air patrols where we disappear into the wilderness via Mi-8 or Mi-17, big Russian-built helicopters.
There are also UN boat patrols on the Nile, run by the Bangladesh Navy, however they aren’t near me, so I probably won’t see much of them. Sudan is a really big country, about 2.5 million square kilometres, and is about ten times the size of New Zealand ... so there’s a lot of ground to cover!
My first impressions:
The Heat. It is hot here. Seriously hot. We have, however, worked out that there is not much difference between 45ºC and 55ºC— it’s all hot!
Khartoum. It is big and dusty. The traffic is crazy. There are road rules but I think these are guidelines only. ‘Inshallah’ is the best way to describe traffic flow. All the cars here are Toyotas, including the Nissans etc. I know that because they all have Toyota badges! Even the tuktuks are Toyota 4x4s—at least the badges say so, even if they only have three wheels.
Team Site Bentiu. The site was easy to find; we looked for the swamp the size of the North Island, and it is located in the middle of it! The villagers live in ‘tuckles,’ wood and thatched round houses. My AOR is also on the migration path of the nomadic cattle herdsmen, who travel south in search of grasslands to graze their cattle during the dry season and return north again in the wet season.
This migration brings its own special issues in a country where there are no fences and gun battles are fought over cows. Unfortunately no one has informed the cows themselves … I am sure you have all seen cows with the heads through fences trying to graze on the other side. Same thing happens here; there is always something better somewhere else and where one cow goes, other cows will follow and gun battles result.
On one of my recent patrols I was tasked with gathering information on some killings and abductions. After a long journey over what in NZ we would call terrible roads, yet for Sudan were pretty good, we reached our destination. I had a meeting with the township Elder about the security situation. He advised that they had four children abducted, two wives kidnapped, 200 head of cattle rustled and a shooting. He wanted to know what the UN was doing to get the cattle back!
Another priority is to assess the medical, food and water supplies, to try and get the World Food Program out there should the need arise. The food situation is in crisis as they have had limited rain fall over the rainy season. Because it is relatively peaceful a lot of people who had previously left are now returning, but they return without food.
I took great pride in meeting with Civil Affairs on my return from that particular patrol and next day saw a convoy of three trucks heading towards the county.
Water is from artesian bores—that particular county has 45 bores. They also have funding from donor countries for a further 90. But of the 45, half do not work due to lack of maintenance. And none of the new bores have been drilled.
It is estimated that 70% of that county does not have access to clean water and instead draws from the Nile, which is polluted due to the high number of bodies in it from fighting up stream. There is a major problem with cholera, and also malaria. The free medical clinic in that area, run by Medicin Sans Fronitiers (Holland), is of course full.
Now we are in to the dry season the locals are burning off all the grasses (after they have harvested sufficient to rebuild the tuckles) to make way for the winter crop plantings. The problem with dry scrub, hot temperatures and a gentle breeze—things can go slightly amiss. We built firebreaks using the UN APCs. One of the interesting sights was seeing all the birds following the fire picking off the animals fleeing before the flames. We also had a 3m cobra take shelter in our camp site.
But as the fire changed course, the Indians and I responded by forming a bucket brigade. I would have never have thought all those sessions in Navy DC School would have seen my training put to use in a scrub fire in Sudan working next to Indian soldiers using buckets!
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