South Sudan: The 'forgotten war' where children as young as one face sexual abuse
Mary Atyeng, a Sudanese refugee at the Kiir Adem border crossing with her baby. Picture: Eugene Ikol, Concern Worldwide
Mary Atyeng holds her three-month old baby as she talks, her eyes squinting against South Sudan's harsh 37-degree sun where she sits next to a river marking the border with Sudan.
She is one of an estimated 12 million people to flee their homes since civil war erupted in Sudan in April 2023.
It comes to about 30% of the population on the move within Sudan or through borders including over a million who have crossed into South Sudan.
Described as the world’s largest displacement crisis it also risks becoming a forgotten war, lost in the global chaos at the moment.
“I came from the north on 16 of December last year,” Mary said.
She added: “I ran away from the north because everyone was fighting, shooting guns and even using knives to slaughter (people), people were fighting in the village.”
Fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has spread across Sudan, powered by sales of smuggled gold on both sides, it is reported.
She described how soldiers entered their small house.
“When they came, I was inside with my husband and to rescue my life and that of my husband, I told him he should just run out from the side of the room and then leave me with them to save his life,” she said.
She was aware of young girls taken by soldiers and their fathers or brothers shot for resisting.
“That one was (causing) pain to me a lot, until I ran out from that place. I remember the pain,” she said simply.
She fled south, crossing at Kiir Adem where a pretty blue river against red earth belies the horrors people have seen.
“So my life was saved, I feel now like I’m home and I do not see those cases again here,” she said.
UNICEF have warned children as young as one face sexual abuse. However, refugees spoke of many kinds of terrifying violence.
Amiema Mohamad, 28, clasps and unclasps her hands as she spoke at Athiem medical centre.
Large tent clinics were scattered around a mahogany tree whose branches offered shade to waiting refugees and locals.
Amiema arrived in South Sudan in May last year from Khartoum, a journey of around 1,000km. It took about eight days.
“I could not stay there because the fighting was very serious,” she said, adding that she travelled with three children aged between one and six.
“My parents were killed during the war, my brother, my children and also my sister have passed away, and that’s why I ran from Khartoum.”
She explained her parents were killed by soldiers, saying: “Some family members were burned inside their house.”
Her future is bleak, she said, her money stolen on the long trek. Now she collects wood to sell, a stark contrast to her “good life” before.
“I will not go back to Sudan, because war is there,” she said, however.
Among the men seated under the tree is former English student Moussa Adem, 30. He came from Darfur where the RSF have been accused by the US of committing genocide. It is a dire return of violence to a region spotlighted by actor George Clooney two decades ago.
Moussa said the killing of his younger brother was the final straw.
“I lost my family member, he was shot in front of us. Many others are facing the same situation,” he said, his voice faltering.
The family’s businesses including a shop were destroyed. He fled by truck in July 2023 on a journey which took many days.
“We were frightened, we were very afraid,” he said, saying: “People are killing and stealing their things, they are threatening.”
He described leaving voice messages for his family, hoping destroyed phone networks might flicker back to life long enough for them to hear it.
“This war is damaging everything,” he said. “Our village is destroyed totally, there is nothing there. The majority of people who were living in our area have escaped.”
Supports in this parched region include five mobile clinics run by Concern Worldwide with international funding.
When Mary Atyeng arrived at the border, she was heavily pregnant and gave birth assisted by midwife Rebecca Dut Chan whose training was supported years earlier by Concern.
Public health expert Emillia Mutya pointed to the long history of instability.
“People easily get emotional or get angered easily, it’s very easy for them to retaliate and the retaliation is in a violent way – the only way we can settle a dispute is through violence, we don’t have room to negotiate amicably,” she said.
Her colleague social worker Robert Akol Garang said “sometimes I have 15 or 20 GBV (gender-based violence) survivors per day” to see.
He said the women are “traumatised”, adding: "Other survivors told me they were forced by soldiers and held. Some of them escaped from men who had forced them into marriage or sexual violence."
Despite the daily challenges, he insisted: “This is something that can change”.
