On Monday 11th July there was a public holiday to celebrate South Sudan’s independence. Therefore there was no school. The actual anniversary falls on the 9th, but as the 9th was a Saturday this year, the public holiday was shifted to Monday. I had scheduled to hold a teachers meeting that day to make arrangements and set deadlines for writing exam papers for the end of term exams which are supposed to start on 1st August. My intention was to hold the meeting without interrupting the education of our pupils.
On Sunday, the chief of Anzara was shot dead at a high-level
security meeting right next to the local police station by some people who were
standing nearby. The police called on
the military police to assist and some were arrested, including the perpetrator. The chief’s funeral was to be held on Monday. This incident has caused a general escalation
of unrest.
Early on Monday morning I was told that there had been more
raiding of animals in Mogali with two people shot dead and one abducted. In protest, the local youth put the bodies in
the middle of the road and started burning tyres.
As the time of the teachers’ meeting approached there were
suddenly gunshots in our own local area.
I started phoning all the teachers asking them not to come after
all. I spent the day in our home
compound, unable to go out because it was too dangerous.
By Tuesday more shootings had occurred, so it became clear
that school had to be cancelled until the situation calmed down again. I walked to the school to fetch textbooks, so
that I could compose some exam papers for my students. I also collected textbooks for another
teacher who lives close to me so that he could do the same.
While at the school I decided to visit a pastor friend of
mine, who lives nearby. His name is
Pastor Abraham. He had had a very difficult
night; all seven of his goats had been stolen as well as his solar panel, which
he had left outside by mistake. His
family had spent the whole night cowering inside while he and a teenage boy
stood guard. In spite of that, when I
visited everyone seemed in good spirits.
They had been foraging for greens to eat as they had run out of food,
and were busy cleaning them. Normally
the pastor’s wife has a stall in the market, but the market was completely
closed due to the situation, leaving no means of earning money or buying food.
Later on I started work on my exam papers, which at least
gave me some activity. I contacted as
many as possible of our teachers to ask them to do the same. In some cases it was clear that they were no
longer in South Sudan because their phone numbers would not go through.
I am hoping against hope that we can reopen the school next
week, but so far not a day is going by without some sporadic shooting. It is incredibly frustrating to try to run a
school which keeps having to close down as people flee or simply fear to send
their children out of their home compounds.
We opened the school in April, only to be ordered to close
again until May, after only one week of teaching. Then we reopened in May and had to close
again because of the local insecurity after only a few days. We congratulated ourselves on being able to
stay open for the whole of June, and now find ourselves closed again because of
insecurity. Each time, the majority of families
take their children to Uganda and then take a long time to return, so that when
we reopen there are very few pupils or teachers. The reason for the slow return is the high
cost of transport as well as distrust of the situation. Families have to find means to travel back
having spent everything they had on fleeing.
I feel very sad for our children because their education is
so disrupted. It may well cause some to
drop out of school altogether, as happened when Covid struck. More left when we closed down in May. I look at our older children, who are getting
closer to the end of primary school all the time. They are very, very keen to learn, but
everything seems to be stacked against them.
There were no celebrations for Independence Day in Nimule,
but that was no surprise. The local
government does not have money and the local people are too fed up to feel much
like celebrating in any case, even without the current crisis. In the time I have been here the lack of
celebration has always been the norm.
Almost every year there are problems around the time of Independence Day,
but usually it is banditry on the road between Nimule and Juba. This year is the first time Nimule has been
so directly affected.
Pastor Abraham said to me that we must constantly remind
people of how the Hebrew prophets kept reminding their people that when they
behaved badly, God punished them. When they
behaved well, God rewarded them. Cause
and effect.
Please keep us in prayer, particularly for a change of heart
of those who are destroying their country.
