Malakal, South Sudan — 'There is no house, no food, and no place to sleep for the children.'
There is no questioning the terrible suffering that South Sudanese citizens living in war-torn Sudan have endured over the past year and half - the extreme hunger, the killings, the horrible reports of sexual violence.
Yet for many of the more than 600,000 who have now escaped the war and returned back to South Sudan, the sad truth is that their situation here is almost as dire as the one they left behind.
"Everyone here struggles for survival on their own, and you cannot expect any support since life is equally difficult for everyone," 43-year-old South Sudanese returnee Simon Gatdet told me a few months ago from the northeastern town of Malakal.
Gatdet said two of his children died of illness en route to South Sudan, and that he survives by selling charcoal and soap at a local market. He said he cannot continue south from Malakal to his hometown because of armed groups along the roads.
Over the past 18 months, I have interviewed dozens of returnees like Gatdet who have fled the bruising battle between Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. Most left South Sudan as refugees, and have returned after long absences.
I had hoped their situation would get better as time passed, as journalists documented their struggles, and as relief efforts swung into gear. Yet recent conversations I have had with returnees suggest this expectation was misplaced.
While some have managed to settle well - often boosted by support from relatives, friends, civil society groups, and international aid - many others are struggling to reboot their lives in a country scarred by its own civil war between 2013 and 2018.
Even before Sudan's conflict erupted, South Sudan had been struggling with stubbornly high rates of violence despite a political transition - that was supposed to lead to repeatedly delayed elections - consecutive years of mass flooding, and worsening inflation.
On a trip to Malakal, one of the biggest towns in the country, I spoke to returnees who described children dying of hunger, and local leaders who said the town's public infrastructure is at breaking point because of new arrivals.
Recent reports have described cholera outbreaks among returnee populations, and aid groups have called for urgent improvements in the medical and humanitarian response amid high rates of malaria and malnutrition.
The attention given to returnees from Sudan (however limited) has, meanwhile, led humanitarian groups and the media to overlook South Sudanese citizens who are coming home from other countries like Uganda and Ethiopia.
Many escaped to these countries during the civil war here and began returning after a peace agreement in 2018. My recent interviews with returnees from refugee camps in Uganda show that they need livelihood and emergency assistance too.
Given the needs on the ground, aid groups need to do a better job of conveying to international donors the severity of the situation that returnees are facing around the country.
And I am sure the returnees would also like to see the government here cease political in-fighting and remember that it has responsibilities beyond maintaining power and privileges in Juba, the capital city.
The government's current lack of interest in helping returnees, refugees, and displaced people is more due to a "lack of political will rather than lack of money", Jok Madut Jok, a South Sudanese scholar at Syracuse University in the United States, told me.
Thrown into poverty
Most returnees from Sudan have been arriving in the border town of Renk over the past year, before taking boats to Malakal. Some stay put there, while others travel onwards on flights chartered by the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
IOM has said its transport assistance programme for returnees is one of the largest it has ever done, turning the UN agency into a de facto humanitarian air carrier, with several dozen flights taking off every week from Malakal airport.
Other international organisations have also been chipping in - building houses for returnees who can prove land ownership, constructing transit centres along borders, and providing food and cash assistance for returnees who reach a final destination.
Still, the returnees I spoke with said the assistance they get is limited and cannot patch over the country's deep economic issues - a product of a negligent state, civil wars, and the legacy of centuries of predation by outside forces, including the British.
Malakal is a case in point. A gateway to major oil fields, it was badly damaged by the 2013-2018 civil war, changing hands multiple times. Scars still run deep despite community reconciliation efforts, and tens of thousands of people displaced by conflict live in a UN-protected camp there.
Many returnees said they were afraid of being out in town, especially at night, while others said they are struggling to get enough food or to find work to support their families - many of whom were malnourished on arrival after long trips from Sudan.
"I eat twice a day at most: first in the morning, and then I keep some food and eat again around 3-4pm," said William Ogwen, a mother of three who arrived in Malakal earlier this year. She said she is being supported by her mother, who works at a restaurant in town.
Malakal locals said they are struggling too. Nhial Ruot, 48, said he is happy to see his compatriots back in South Sudan but worries that it will mean even less humanitarian support for people like him.
"We really need to be assisted, but there is no agency to support us currently," said Ruot. After back-to-back years of flooding, people's houses desperately need repairing, he added.
Returnees have also arrived in the Malakal camp, "greatly increasing" issues there, said Bol Akaydeng, a camp community leader. He said there are water shortages, sanitation problems, and that new shelters are being erected over drainage points.
To avoid too many returnees arriving in big towns with little capacity like Malakal, the government has been trying to encourage people to return to their usually rural birthplace villages, where they could reclaim land and leverage family contacts.
But Jok, the scholar, said this idea is ill conceived, given that many of the returnees lived in urban settings in Sudan where their children could go to school, have healthcare, and access clean water.
"Returning them to the rural areas is tantamount to throwing them into even more poverty," Jok said. He questioned how households with no sources of traditional wealth like livestock or farmland could be expected to build new lives in villages.
That was also the view of Abul Mathiang Ngong, a former Khartoum resident who I interviewed several times last year after she had returned to her village in the north of South Sudan.
"Life was much easier in Khartoum," Ngong said. "I was working as a community drug distributor, and at a road construction company. My children were very healthy because they used to eat food with protein, but here we struggle to get any type of food."
Forgotten returnees
If returnees from Sudan are struggling to make ends meet, those coming from other countries in the region appear to be receiving even less consideration and support from the government and aid groups.
Though there aren't big numbers of daily arrivals from refugee camps in Uganda, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Kenya, more than 600,000 have returned cumulatively from these countries since the 2013-2018 civil war ostensibly ended.
One aid worker told me it is harder for organisations to convince donors to extend more support to these returnees, given their immediate needs are less critical than those coming from Sudan, and given the arrivals are more staggered.
Still, the lack of support sorely showed on a reporting trip I took earlier this year to the town of Magwi, near the Ugandan border. Returnees there described feeling stranded and unsupported, with not enough money for food, school fees, or shelter.
Joska Aryemo, a 47-year-old single mother of eight who fled South Sudan for Uganda in 2016 and returned earlier this year, said her family has been living under a tree on a small plot of land gifted by a neighbour.
"There is no house, no food, and no place to sleep for the children," Aryemo told me. "If there was a place I could get assistance, I would run there, even if I could get only a canvas to put over the head of my children."
John Achien, a 47-year-old who arrived in Malakal in January after spending nearly a decade in a refugee camp in Ethiopia, said no organisation has given him food assistance. He said he sells charcoal at a market but only eats once a day.
"In Ethiopia, I was eating twice a day - we were provided as refugees there," he said. "[Here], I have no job, and I have no work. I am just sitting here and selling such things which cannot feed me the way I want."
'I have met people that have become my friends'
Though returnees all described hardship, many also spoke of positive experiences, from reuniting with their families to receiving social and humanitarian support from relatives and fellow citizens.
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Nyabol Akaj, a resident of the UN-protected camp in Malakal, told me the camp community has "warmly" welcomed returnees, despite facing so many of their own challenges.
"It is difficult to help them when we cannot even help ourselves," Akaj said. "However, we are living together with them, sharing what little we have, even though we are not in [a] position to make their lives any better."
Aryemo, the returnee in Magwi, said she has benefited from joining a local women's group formed of returnees and other community members. The group pools resources and provides members with financial support to run small businesses.
"When this group saw me so stranded, working for small wages in people's gardens, they called me," Aryemo said. "They started giving me advice, reassuring me that I am able to push on and should not give up in life. They advised me very well."
Achien, the recent returnee from Ethiopia, said Malakal residents have been very supportive of him too, always encouraging him to be patient and to wait for his personal situation to improve.
"They do not give me anything, but they counsel me, talk to me, telling me; 'don't be afraid, don't worry about the past, just do your things and God will provide for you going forward,"' Achien said.
Ngong, the former Khartoum resident, said she has been grateful for the opportunity to meet old relatives, hear stories about her ancestors, and connect with the village life of her childhood.
"The hospitality we found here was not what many people expected," she told me. "We had been hearing about an internal war in South Sudan - one that predated the war in Sudan - but I have met people that have become my friends."
Ogwen, the mother of three who arrived in Malakal earlier this year, said her struggles were softened by the opportunity to reconnect with her mother after many years spent apart.
"She was very happy to see me, and carried me on her lap like the way she used to carry me when I was a child," Ogwen said. "She told me I must stay with her and whatever little we have, we will share together as a family."
The New Humanitarian used transportation and accommodation provided by Médecins Sans Frontières in the course of reporting this story. Edited by Philip Kleinfeld.
