Sudan Conflict: A View from the Brink

The last few weeks has seen a dramatic upsurge in tension between Sudan and South Sudan. The most recent iteration ‘began’ with the occupation, by forces loyal to the South Sudanese government, of the town of Heglig, officially controlled by Sudan and central to the control of north-flowing oil supplies. This was quickly followed by a) war-like rhetoric by Sudan’s President Omar-al-Bashir, b) condemnation of the occupation by the United Nations and [portions of] the International Community, and c) a military offensive by the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF). South Sudanese forces left Heglig- whether by choice (as claimed by South Sudan) or forced out by the SAF (as claimed by Sudan) being unclear due to the limited access by foreign observers.

The withdrawl from Heglig appears to have calmed the situation somewhat- commentary at the time suggested that an escalation to ‘full-blown war’ (whatever that is) was imminent. Sudan’s Air Force has carried out a number of bombing raids against southern targets (aerial bombardments are denied by Khartoum as a matter of course but well documented by witness accounts and the Satellite Sentinel Project). Bashir has turned his rhetoric narrative from that of the offended avenger to that of the vanquishing hero. Meanwhile, the government of South Sudan has played a more defensive game after receiving the diplomatic equivalent of a yellow card from the International Community.

The reality is, however, while the lines of tactical control have shifted and shifted again, the strategic position is little changed. The conflict between Sudan and South Sudan is fraught and on the brink of erupting. But don’t misunderstand this assertion. This is not just some thuggish brinkmanship between two hot-tempered adversaries that could boil over with a careless word. This is a deeply-rooted conflict, in which the issues, the stakes, and the players are all ingrained in a highly tangled context, decades in the growth.

Let’s take a quick look at what’s going on.

I’ve looked at the Sudans context previously, but for those just joining us, here’s the one paragraph summary of the salient points of the Sudans’ modern history. Sudan gained independence as a single nation following British colonial rule which previously saw it divided, with direct administration of the south as an East African colony, and a proxy rule by the Egyptians in the north, resulting in a country with a deep north-south divide on cultural, religious and ethnic grounds. Khartoum’s governance was challenged by a civil uprising in 1956 that lead to two rounds of near-continual civil war, largely driven by the impact of resource centralization, Islamicization, arabicization and the marginalization of impoverished outlying states. This was further exacerbated by the seizure, via coup, of the National Congress Party (NCP) in Khartoum, led by now- (and still-) President Bashir, who entrenched these policies further. The signing of the internationally-brokered Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in 2005 brought an end to open warfare and led, in 2011, to a referendum which saw the south vote overwhelmingly for independence and becoming, a few months later, the world’s newest state. The time since has been characterized by increasing tension between Khartoum and the southern government in Juba, particularly over the official border demarcation between north and south and, by the same token, control over the country’s rich oil reserves that straddle that border.

On the subject of civil war, it’s worth mentioning the Darfur conflict, which kicked off in 2003 and led to a [debatable] 200,000 or more deaths due to a combination of direct combat and disease resulting from displacement. While geographically (and politically) distinct from the war between north and south (see above map for reference), it’s relevant because it shares many root causes, its protagonists many of the same disgruntlements. Darfur rebel groups have long taken their lead from developments in negotiations between north and south, and many of Sudan’s disparate rebel groups have shared a common sympathy and a loose alliance.

It’s also important to understand several aspects of warfare in Sudan. One is the principle of assymetry. Historically, the SAF has held considerable dominance from the perspective of materiel and training (a proper Air Force used to devastating effect against largely civilian targets, and a large convential standing army), while most rebel groups have historically been militias drawn from civilian populations, or at times elements deserted from the SAF (note that the SAF’s dominance on paper is no longer assured). A second issue is the use of proxy militias. The most infamous of these is the Janjawid, ostensibly used by Khartoum (who, characteristically, denies the charge) to carry out massacres and ethnic cleansing in Darfur. However they were used extensively during the north-south conflict, often drawn along ethnic boundaries and exacerbating existing tensions, and often associated with some of the worst crimes against civilian populations. A third issue is heavy international involvement. This manifests itself both in terms of the support given to the various sides of the conflict, and also in the efforts at mediation. While Bashir has perfected the diplomatic Waltz, dancing around sanctions and resolutions to keep the international community on the back foot, Juba all but owes its existence as an independant entity to the direct intervention by NGOs, the UN, and international sponsors.

Before we go further, let’s do a quick recap of the major players.

Sudan, Republic of– The northern half of what used to be the nation of Sudan and historically refered to as ‘north’ or ‘northern’ Sudan, governed from Khartoum. Population: 30 million. GDP: USD 89 billion (USD 2,700 per capita). Percentage of exports associated with oil prior to secession of South Sudan: 70-90%.

South Sudan, Republic of- The southern half of what used to be the nation of Sudan, independant since July 2011 and with its capital in Juba. Population: ~10 million. GDP: USD 13 billion (USD 1,500 per capita). Percentage of Sudan’s pre-secession oil fields now in its control: 80% (estimated). Percentage of budget accounted for by oil exports: 98%.

Omar-al-Bashir– President of Sudan since seizing power in a coup in 1983. There is an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court in his name, for charges of war crimes. And (if the author is allowed a brief editorial moment in what will otherwise be a largely impartial analysis) a tool. Prop: Walking Cane.

National Congress Party (NCP)– The ruling party of Sudan, led by Omar-al-Bashir.

Salva Kiir– President of South Sudan, ex-soldier & former leader of the SPLA, successor to John Garang (obit. 2005), former First Vice President of Sudan pre-secession. Prop: Cowboy Hat.

Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM)– Main political entity representing the southern Sudanese during the 2^nd civil war (from 1983) and now ruling party of South Sudan, headed by Salva Kir.

Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA)– Armed wing of the SPLM during the 2^nd civil war, the legacy of which now forms the core of the South Sudan Armed Forces (SSAF) and is in the process of being regularized. Highly factional and historically driven by ethnic loyalties and personality cults.

Sudan People’s Liberation Army- North (SPLA-N)– Anti-Khartoum rebel group with a strong presence in the Nuba Mountains of South Kordofan. While Kordofan ‘belongs’ to Khartoum, it is ethnically strongly tied to the south, and the SPLA-N is allied with- although tactically and officially independant from- the SPLA.

Sudan Liberation Army (SLA)– Rebel group from Darfur fighting the government in Khartoum.

Justice and Equality Movement (JEM)– Rebel group from Darfur fighting the government in Khartoum.

Sudan Revolutionary Forces (SRF)– A relatively recent alliance (late 2011) between various anti-Khartoum rebel groups- the SPLA-N, JEM, and two factions of the SLA (the Minni Minnawi and Abdel Wahid groups), now fighting as a quasi-independant force allied with but not [fully] controlled by Juba. Implicated in the recent occupation of Heglig.

Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA)– Violent Ugandan rebel group known for abduction of thousands of children and the brutal mutilation and murder of civilians, recently made more broadly infamous by the #KONY2012 campagain. Allegedly supported by Khartoum as a proxy militia that occupied the Ugandan Peoples Defence Forces (UPDF), who were pro-southern Sudan, and also carried out attacks more recently in southern Sudanese territory. Interestingly, after a couple of years of relative inactivity, the LRA’s operations have picked up pace over the last six months, just as tensions in South Sudan rise. The LRA is currently operating out of eastern Central African Republic and being hunted by US Special Forces and elements from the UPDF.

United Nations (UN)– The UN has three missions in the Sudans: the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), a peacekeeping mission headquartered in Juba with approximately 12,000 personnel; The United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA), a peacekeeping mission founded in response to an upsurge of violence in the contested region of Unity State made up exclusively of Ethiopian forces; and the Africa Union-United Nations Hybrid Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), a largely AU-staffed force of around 20,000 personnel carrying out peacekpeeing operations in the Darfur region of Sudan.

<<End Glossary>>

The situation as we find it now is a fabulous entanglement of agendas and historicity, driven more than anything by the need for control over oil resources, exacerbated by decades of political, cultural and military division. Sudan, under pressure from the international community via the CPA mechanism, has had to allow South Sudan to secede, losing up to 80% of its potential oil revenue. South Sudan, for its part, can currently only export its oil via ports in Sudan, thus striking an ongoing deal that 50% of its oil revenue will go to Sudan in exchange for said service. The deal should in theory mean that both nations can benefit from that sticky black nectar. In reality, a series of disagreements- over control of specific oil fields and over the pricing mechanism for oil leading to stoppages of oil flow which threaten both nations’ economies- have meant that the relationship between the two countries has been rendered quite disfunctional.

South Sudan’s occupation of Heglig- roundly slammed by the UN- came on the back of months of sporadic aerial and artillery bombardment by the SAF, as well as allegations of ethnic cleansing of pro-south areas in Sudanese territory. The latter events have created an upsurge in activity by the SPLA-N, which as far as Khartoum is concerned, is little different to a direct attack by regular South Sudan armed forces. Even the nature of the recent occupation of Heglig is under some dispute, with some observers claiming a large portion of the tactical operation used SRF fighters- but certainly with the support and official consent of the SPLM.

So what of prospects for peace or war? Does South Sudan’s withdrawl from Heglig represent a willingness to back down? Certainly, the quick and unequivocal condemnation by UNSG Ban Ki Moon seemed to come as a surprise to Kiir- as it did to a wide range of commentators and analysts, many of whom pointed out that the south’s occupation of Heglig, far from being a unilateraly aggressive act, was a fairly measured reaction after putting up with months of both military aggression and political deviance from the north. Whether the condemnation by the UN was as ill-founded as observers suggest, or whether it was a calculated statement planned to buy some more time for negotiations (of the two capitals, Juba- which relies on so much international support- would be much more likely to react to a statement of condemnation from the UN than Khartoum- for whom such pronouncements are somewhat toothless and pedestrian) remains to be seen.

The pieces are certainly in play for the steady build-up to a protracted conflict. Militarization on both sides of the border has been steadily increasing for months. Two-faced rhetoric is pouring from the politicians- most obviously from the north who, with one mouth placate diplomats with assurances they seek a peaceful resolution, while rallying the Sudanese population with talk of overthrowing Juba with the other.

More critical are the unresolved underlying issues. Unfulfilled commitments from the CPA are a critical component. One of the biggest complaints of the South is that key areas who were promised the opportunity to vote on whether they stayed with Sudan or joined South Sudan have not happened. While the rhetoric used by the South is that they are not concerned with the outcome, only that due process is followed, the reality is these areas are likley to declare for the South, further removing Khartoum’s access to oil.

And while control of the oil revenue remains the single most important factor, the exacerbating factor here is the historical animosity between North and South. A narrative- and a very recent one- exists to mobilize populations for war on both sides of the border. Many soldiers- and just as crucially, their commanding officers- are battle-hardened veterans of a violent conflict. While there have been few direct confrontations between Sudan and South Sudan since the turn of the millenium, proxy conflicts have been many. Meanwhile, the SAF have been fighting engagements in Darfur, Kordofan and Blue Nile fairly consistently since the conflict with the south began to lessen, and by the same token, the SLA, JEM and other pro-south militias have been equally engaged. Add in the evidence of targeted killings of civilians to enrage the South, and remarks that bring forth echos of pre-genocide Rwanda from Bashir, and the political mechanisms to move to a state of war are all but established.

There are reasons, however, to hope that war may be avoided. The shutdown of oil production has effectively frozen the lifeblood of both economies, and without financial resources, a war is unsustainable for very long. It’s expensive to annihilate your enemies.

There is a strong international presence in South Sudan. The international community has long shown itself fairly impotent where Khartoum is concerned, and Bashir has been masterful in giving the UN just enough of what is demanded of it to avoid real penalties, while not really conceding anything at all. However the South is far more dependant on that international support and, as reaction to the recent UN condemnation implies, more likely to react. That said, of course, UN-mandated peacekeeping missions are notoriously ineffective, and it’s unlikely that a significant upsurge in conflict between Sudan and South Sudan would or could be stemmed by the presence of Blue Helmets on the ground. During last year’s fighting in Abyei, peackeepers were accused of taking no action while civilians bore the brunt of the aggression.

One of the biggest factors in the 1983-2005 civil war was foreign interest in control of the oil fields. Then, the war was a proxy conflict in the Cold War, with Khartoum supported by the Soviets (until their demise) and the SPLA supported by the US, who purportedly poured millions of dollars worth of weapons and training into the rebels’ cause. In many senses, the war was eventually ‘won’ by the South (in a somewhat pyrrhic fashion), arguably due in a significant part to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the corresponding loss of support of Khartoum.

Today the stakes are similar- control of oil revenues- although the players (and their politics) differ. The US was one of the architects of the CPA. While having some influence over oil production (and therefore price and revenue) is a key outcome, there is also chatter about the US military footprint on the continent through the medium of AFRICOM, the US Africa Command, and possible interest in establishing an operations base somewhere in the subregion. The considerations aren’t entirely implausible. Khartoum was a target in the war on terror. It provided a home to bin Laden for a period, was Tomahawk’d by Clinton following the 1998 embassy bombings in east Africa, and its conservative application of Islamic principles in governance puts it high up the list of states that make the US twitchy. Regionally, the Sahara has become a major hiding spot for watchlisted insurgency groups, as well as drugs and weapons-smuggling operations. Somalia- where there’s a growing catalogue of evidence for US counter-terrorism and Special Forces operations- is a short plane-ride away. With South Sudan’s government a relatively weak (read: easy to muscle) one, it would make an attractive partner from which to base an operational presence, as well as being geographically strategic.

The other major outsider in the deal, however, is probably the most critical. China has vast investment in both Sudan and South Sudan, and is pouring money into developing the oil fields second to none. In 2009 alone, Chinese firms apparently invested USD 8 billion in Sudan, 90% of it going into the oil fields. Pre-secession, it accounted for 50% of foreign direct investment in Sudan. However, while a large portion of its investment has been through Khartoum, since independance it has also moved to shore up relations with Juba, and reported just this week is a USD 8 billion loan scheme. Prior to the oil-pipeline shutdown, South Sudan was providing 5% of China’s oil needs.

What’s key here, and perhaps the best news around, is that China is playing the field on both sides of the border- something that was missing in the 1983-2005 civil war, where both the USSR and the US had unilateral interest in seeing one side win over the other. China, which effectively holds the purse-strings for both Sudan and South Sudan, has no interest in seeing the two nations go to war. It would lose a vast amount of investment, its own personnel and infrastructure have already repeatedly been caught up in hostilities in the region, and to boot it would lose control over a sizeable oil source for which it is ever thirsty. If indications were that China was moving towards supporting one side (e.g. Sudan) over the other, hopes for peace would be very bleak indeed. The fact that they are continuing to invest on both sides of the border offers some hope.

That said, playing the neutral broker in a deal with such high stakes is a very unfamiliar and somewhat awkward position for China, which has consistently been slammed for its ethical track record, particularly in its African investments. Chinese engagement in international diplomacy is at best enigmatic, and this remains true. Salva Kiir has returned in just the last couple of days from a trip to Beijing, bringing with him the confirmation of the USD 8 billion deal. What conversations happened behind closed doors remain unknown for the time being, but it is highly unlikely that Beijing will part with that sort of cash without wanting some assurances that that money won’t be used to buy weapons or simply be bombed out of existence by two belligerents. So far, China has not confirmed whether it will support South Sudanese petitions for a new oil pipeline to be built which would allow South Sudan to export via a third nation. Such a deal would presumably infuriate Khartoum, effectively stemming any chance of benefiting from the southern oil fields.

Of course, to some extent events will be out of the hands of statesmen. Militias like the SRF and the SPLA-N may respond somewhat to the will of Juba, but are not wholly controlled by them, and they are less amenable to the chunks of cash wielded by foreign investors. Should they continue a regime of destabilizing (or retributionary) attacks, the situation along the border is likely to continue to deteriorate. The same can be said for incursions and bombardments by the SAF, which provide the fuel for SPLA-N/SRF wrath. Concerns are that China, with its less than exemplary record on human rights, is not the right intermediary to stop a dirty little conflict like the one currently building on Sudan’s southern border.

There are a lot of moving pieces in the machinery of the Sudans, and things are still unfolding. Even as Kiir returns from Beijing with a promise of full pockets, Sudan has continued bombardments of southern territory, and southern-allied militia have moved against SAF positions in Upper Nile, prompting Khartoum to declare a state of emergency. Behind the scenes, diplomats are scrabbling to keep the communication game alive, reporting with optimism that both sides claim to want peace, even while their respective pieces move against eachother along the chequered border. The withdrawl form Heglig appears to have bought a little more time for a brokered solution to be sought, but done little to change the trend towards escalation.

However, a brokered solution will take a lot of time to be reached, never mind implemented, and rest in part at least upon UN and AU statements whose threats for non-compliance carry about as much weight as ‘just wait until your father gets home’. With the underlying issues remaining unresolved, and a history of bad faith in fulfilling promises, there may be little confidence that both parties will abide by their agreements. With trust being eroded on the one hand, and catalytic events moving quicker than diplomacy on the other, if an escalation to destructive war is to be avoided, some very heavy-handed international involvement will be necessary. Finding an actor with both the will and the power to wield this sort of force is difficult. The best hope for this may well be the strategic use of Chinese investment and intervention, but it’s far from a sure bet. Right now, the indications- despite verbal assurances to the contrary- all suggest that Sudan and South Sudan are on a sturdy war footing. All else remaining equal, their stalled economies may restrict the extent to which either side can wage large-scale industrial war. However there’s still plenty of room for things to get very, very nasty, particularly for the hundreds of thousands of civilians caught in the crossfire. With significant portions of both Sudan and South Sudan highly food insecure, and hundreds of thousands displaced, the impact of conflict layered on this already fragile humanitarian context could be disastrous.

War between Sudan and South Sudan isn’t a done deal yet, but they continue to teeter on the brink.

For excellent online coverage from the front line of the Sudan conflict, follow @alanboswell and his stories for McClatchy (and recently, Time)

Photos linked to source, used without permission. Contact me with any concerns.

The Ambush (Part 3 of 3): Evac

Note: This is the third in a three-part account of a security incident I was involved with in late 2007, in Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region.  Click here to read the first part, and here to read the second.  I’m sharing this story for World Humanitarian Day (19 August), which honours aid workers, and remembers those killed and injured in the line of duty.

Please note that the story contains an account of violence that readers who have been exposed to critical incidents themselves may find disturbing.

Evac

The stretch of sun-seared bitumen from Nyala airport into the town itself passes along a desolate acreage of dry scrubland- bare earth pocked with low grey houses, rising to a couple of low scraggy hills in one direction, and otherwise opens out to the brown and barren expanse of the semi-arid Sahel. Not far from here is the vast sprawl of Otash camp, the makeshift home these past four years to tens of thousands of internally displaced Sudanese relying on international assistance to survive.

I’m sitting in the back of another logo’d Land Cruiser eerily similar to the one I left this town in earlier today, under vastly different circumstances; in some ways a vastly different person.

It’s an ambulance-style setup as well, with bench-seats running along the hull and facing each other over an empty bay. I can’t help thinking of Abdul and how, seven hours ago I was kneeling by his head trying to keep him alive as we jarred our escape along the vehicle-tracks of the savannah south and west of here.

I’m sitting opposite Emmanuel. His face is drawn and weary, but there’s also inexpressible relief there. He looks at me, and although there’s nothing funny about today, he smiles and shakes his big dark head.

“Truly,” he says, “You are a child of God.”

I thank him, a wry smile that is part acceptance, part bemusement twisting my lips. It’s an odd compliment. It’s an odd time for it. But I take it.

He elaborates.

“They shot you,” he says. “But nothing happened.”

I nod, and get a funny feeling. I think he’s talking about the way our assailant emptied his clip through the windows of the four-by-four and the dozen or so bullets that must have whipped through that tight space but leaving us alive.

But I’m wrong.

Flight Out

The chopper comes about four in the afternoon. The attack happened a little before eleven, which means we’ve been out here for a little over five hours. Hot, thirsty, exhausted. But we’re all alive.

It’s a big Mi-8 Hip, a behemoth of an aircraft that seats 24 passengers plus crew, with round portal windows and a ramp that drops down at the back.

We’ve been hearing word that the thing is on its way for a few hours when it finally materializes. It wasn’t really until about half an hour earlier that we get confirmation that yes, this time it’s actually taken off. Then we hear that the pilots can’t find the village. ‘Bul-Bul’ isn’t a helpful reference, and they’ve had to put down a couple of places already, looking for us. But at least this confirms to us that it’s actually airborne.

We hear it whopping through the air a couple of minutes before it comes into sight over the low scrub, and the sheer release of tension I feel finally seeing it hovering over the village makes up for the growing frustration I’ve been feeling as reports of our pending evacuation begin to to feel less and less believable.

There’s a big open patch of ground in front of the health hut, at least the size of a soccer pitch, and the brute hangs there like a giant airborne cricket before slowly putting down, back-wheels and then front-wheels. It is all white with a black-stencilled designation on the airframe.

The ramp at the rear drops down, and four medics carrying a stretcher between them come running out, heads low beneath the thumping blades. They could only have made a more dramatic entry if they’d parachuted into the village from on high. The whole community has turned out to watch them. Soldiers are stacked in the tray of the pickup truck, leaning nonchalantly on their weapons as though they aren’t totally digging the fuss.

They put the stretcher down in the open area in front of the compound, and inside I organize a few men to transfer Abdul back onto the bench, after which we litter him outside and transfer him over. The lead doctor pours over him, consulting in Arabic with the nurse. Within a minute there’s another drip in him, being held aloft by a female orderly.

There are orders now. There’s an Africa Union official with the flight, fair skinned but fluent in Arabic, and I suspect he’s Egyptian, or maybe Moroccan. He’s telling us to get onboard quickly. They don’t want to stay on the ground longer than absolutely necessary.

There’s a brief discussion going on. The drivers are talking about staying with their vehicles and driving them home. Emmanuel is telling them no way. Eventually they acquiesce. I watch the proceedings, standing by with my backpack until I’m waved onboard through the rear ramp. When I get into the cabin, Mohammed and Essam are already seated, and Mohammed’s head is being rebandaged.

I sit near the front by one of the round windows. The escape exit is marked with Cyrillic words. I muse to myself that I never thought I’d be so happy to be inside an aircraft stamped with Russian letters. Then they’re loading Abdul into the back on his stretcher, a calm little hive of activity, and the ramp is closing. The curious villagers are waved back.

The engine rotations increase and the noise level in the helicopter ramps up. I’m handed a pair of earphones. There’s a curious feeling as the vehicle goes weightless, and then we’re hovering.

I look out of the window. The whole village is there, in a giant semi-circle, must be three hundred people. The two technicals loaded with armed militia. Men in their robes. Women in bright coloured print dresses and headscarfs, all fluttering in the wind. Our exit is like something from a Hollywood movie. I note it at the time.

Then the nose dips, and we’re heading east.

***

I’m in a funk of exhausted relief. There’s not a whole lot going through my head. I’m staring out of the windows watching Darfur slip beneath us a few hundred feet down. Flat-topped acacia trees and thorny scrub, little clusters of villages and the outlines of pasture-lands. Wadis are marked by lines of dark green where foliage taps the underground moisture. In the late afternoon sun, the brown landscape takes on warm hues.

The confused euphoria of survival sets in.

Nyala

Approaching Nyala, the helicopter banks over the outskirts of town. I can see the IDP camps laid out beneath us, white and brown speckled over the dusty landscape like a skin-rash. They’re vast. I’ve noted them every time I’ve flown in and out of here.

Touching down on the apron moments later, and I see the Sudanese helicopter gunships lined up a few dozen yards from where the UN Humanitarian Air Service flight disgorges its daily quotient of arriving aid workers. It’s one of the blatant ironies of this corner of the world.

The blades go still and the vibrating leaves a remnant that tingles in all the muscles. The ramp opens. Hot daylight and the perfume of AvGas spills into the cabin.

I’m the last of us out, and I step into a mob of chaos. It seems half of Nyala is out here to meet us. I can see a score of people from our office. Family members of the staff involved surge forward. Emergency personnel and aid-workers with some of the medical charities are there. There’s a small fleet of four-by-fours and an ambulance.

By the time I’m out of the chopper, a throng of people has surrounded Abdul’s stretcher. There’s crying and loud voices. Over it all, a set of jet engines is whining loudly. People are trying to make decisions, others are trying to keep the crowd thin. I stand well back.

I feel awkward and a little left out. A couple of the senior expats from our office come over and welcome me back. They look worn and a little haggard. They haven’t been with us in person, but they’ve been trying to manage the crisis from this end, knowing only that their friends and colleagues are in serious trouble. It’s been an incredibly distressing experience.

I see the freshly-bandaged Mohammed being led away.

“You’re being medevac’d to Khartoum,” I’m told. “The plane is waiting.”

The UNHAS flight is the one standing nearby, jets idling and the rear door still open. I can see white faces peering through the windows at the commotion on the apron, but I shake my head.

“I’m fine,” I said. “I want to stay here.”

There’s a little pressure to convince me, and Essam too, but in the end Mohammed flies without us, a nurse staying with him until he reaches the hospital. He’ll be stitched up and treated for a mild concussion, and released without serious physical harm.

There’s still a mob around Abdul. The medics are deliberating. He’s still having fluids pumped into him. They’re very concerned for him and he’s not out of the woods yet. He’s fragile and his blood pressure has bottomed out. They want to fly him to Khartoum at once, but he’s too weak to fly so they’ll need to keep him in Nyala overnight. It isn’t good news.

I’m standing a little to one side when a Sudanese solider walks up to me and starts yelling. He looks nineteen, and he’s got some serious agro. I’m a head taller than him, and I suddenly feel a burst of intense fury, the likes of which I’ve rarely felt in my life. I’m standing there, covered in the dried blood of a colleague, having just had the most intense day of my life. There’s a whole knot of people clogging up the runway, and this punk has the audacity to pick on me. I heckle up and raise my voice back at him, gesturing the injured man on the stretcher, and his attitude arcs up in response. We’re nose-to-nose, and the only thing that stops me taking a swing at him is the knowledge that he has two comrades with assault-rifles nearby, watching. I back down, but stay furious for hours afterwards at the memory.

Later I get a taste of more of the attitude that was coming our way. Abraham, our office manager, tells me that as I stepped out of the back of the aircraft, one of the other soldiers started gesturing at me, yelling in Arabic,

“Why is he okay? They should have shot that one!”

I’m shocked to hear the story. I’ve never been the subject of such hatred before.

***

The full story doesn’t come out until we start to debrief. We have a lot of those over the next few days. First off, we report back to the office managers what happened- myself, Emmanuel and the two drivers. Essam comes back from the hospital a little later after getting stitched up, and travels to Khartoum the next day.

After the first debrief, we report in to the Africa Union base commander. We thank him for sending his chopper to get us out and explain what happened. He’s a Nigerian soldier, thickset and short in stature and temper. He bawls out the office Manager for allowing us to be travelling on a road so unsafe that even his own armored personnel carriers won’t travel on- unfairly, as Abraham wasn’t in town that morning and it wasn’t his decision.

I’m checked out by the base medic, who washes my arm and examines the shrapnel punctures. He scolds me for spending the day covered in blood and reminds me that it’s a risk of infection, especially when I have open wounds of my own. To be honest I’d stopped noticing the stuff. The clothes I’m wearing are still caked in the stuff and I don’t really realise. When I get back to Melbourne I’ll need to have a blood test for Hepatitis and HIV, just to be safe, but I come back clean.

We walk out between the rows of prefab huts, past shirtless grunts kicking around a football in the post-dusk glow, and eventually past the sandbagged nests where sentries with 7.62mm machine-guns crouch outside the wire gates beneath their kevlar helmets. When we get back to the office, the light is fading and fast has broken, and there is a tranquility over the city as families share the start of the evening meal. Beside our gate, four men in off-white robes sit on a thatched mat and invite us to join them in a piece of shared flat-bread. We greet them and gracefully decline. The normalcy aches.

It’s not really until I hear the whole story first-hand from Issa and Essam, both of whom were awake throughout the assault, that I begin accepting what happened that morning, and even then it takes me a couple of days to release the last of the denial.

Details

I run it through again in my head.

The attack is brutal, without warning and, even now, without clear motive beyond banditry. Nobody in our vehicle sees the assailants in the bush, and no effort is made by the attackers to stop either vehicle peacefully.  The attack begins with murderous intent.

In the two or three seconds of that first attack, as far as we can surmise, the gunman squeezes off the better part of an entire clip through the moving vehicle. Looking at the shot-out windows, the number of holes in the fuselage, and the injuries suffered by the staff, we estimate no less than a dozen bullets travel through that tiny space, and possibly more. Each one of us is spared death by pure chance. Millimetres of change in the angle of the muzzle, fractions of seconds’ difference in the firing of the rounds, and any one of the three bullets that go into the strut behind my head could have gone through it instead; the bullet that embeds itself in Essam’s bicep may have gone through his chest- or simply torn out the artery in his upper arm and bled him out; the round that lodges in the sill above the driver’s window could have struck Issa directly; and either one of the slugs that strike Mohammed or Abdul could have killed them outright. In Mohammed’s case, two or three millimeters lower and his head would have blown open. In Abdul’s, a single millimeter lower, and the ensuing damage would kill him in minutes, if not instantaneously.

In those early seconds, Mohammed and Abdul are both knocked unconscious, the former landing beneath the latter. Essam, who immediately realises what’s happening, collapses into his seat and pretends to be dead throughout the entire episode, but concentrating intently on what’s happening. Only Issa and I interact with the gunmen. Essam makes no sign that he’s alive even as his body is roughly searched for valuables by the first attacker, and although he turns his radio down, he keeps it close to him. It’s Essam, listening to what happens next, who may well have saved all of us.

It’s after I’m back in the car, when I’m began to sense that something is really wrong, that things start to go badly. I hand over my money, while Issa stands helplessly by as the two gunmen start talking.

As I’m looking forward through the windshield, my hands still raised, the first gunman, who did all the shooting, raises his weapon and points it at me. According to Issa, he’s agitated and aggressive, highly nervous. Issa wonders whether he might be on drugs. The other guy seems far more frightened, and quieter.

The first gunman addresses Issa.

“Tell him,” he instructs, jerking the gun at me, “That I’m going to kill him.”

Issa, mercifully, does nothing of the kind. He stands there, helpless. I, in my ignorance of Arabic, have no awareness of the plans in store for me.

The gunman adjusts his grip on the gun where it’s levelled on my chest and, ten paces from where I’m sitting, pulls the trigger.

Both Issa and Essam hear the gun click.

The gunman, frustrated, turns to his companion, standing there watching events unfold.

“You finish them off,” he orders.

The other refuses. Issa says he appears reluctant.

“Okay,” says the first, irritated. “Give me your gun. I’ll do it.”

We’re still not entirely sure what happens next to change things. What we know is that Essam, playing dead in the back seat and listening to our murder being discussed, knows that there are few options left. He’s turned his radio back on and is crouched in the back seat, trying to raise the other vehicle. With the volume turned up, its his radio that now chatters to life as Emmanuel comes back to us over the net asking what’s happening.

Although we’ll never know, it’s very possible that the sound of the voice over the radio startles the two gunmen into realising that there are more of us out there, and that perhaps help is on its way. At any rate, without a further word, both men turn and walk off into the bush, leaving us alive. Issa bolts for the driver’s seat, and champion as he is, drives us the mile or two to our first stopping-point in a heavy four-wheel-drive on soft sand, with one of the tyres shot to hell.

We have a lot of heroes to thank that day.

***

We also learn about doings in Nyala. About the sheer panic in the office when the news first breaks that we’ve been attacked and that several of the team- it isn’t clear who or how seriously- are shot. Then about the rapid response that’s undertaken to get us home safe.

The message reaches Nyala about ten minutes after we get to Bul-Bul. They’re eventually able to make contact via cell-phone by standing on the top of a pickup truck. That means it’s not quite an hour since the shooting. From there, the office mobilise and contact the Africa Union. Within forty-five minutes of the news coming through, there’s a chopper on the apron in Nyala, fueled, with a crew and a medical staff, ready to lift off.

The Sudanese military takes three subsequent hours to give it official clearance to lift off and get us.

When I first hear that information I don’t have much energy left to respond emotionally to the news. Now, it makes my blood boil. I think how close Abdul came to dying on that table in the bush while we sat waiting for some piece of bureaucratic machinery to creak over- or worse, some malicious officer who would have been quite happy for some unwanted NGO worker to perish.

Aftermath

Abdul lives. Against all the odds.

We visit him that night in Nyala hospital. I remember the warmth of the evening air, and of families crowded into the hospital’s central courtyard around lamps, waiting for loved ones on the wards, bringing them food and themselves sharing the evening break-fast seated in circles on the ground, stew in coloured plastic pots and broth in copper kettles.

He lies on another guerney, under a fleece blanket and stripped to the waist, conscious but weak. We don’t spend long with him. We speak briefly with his brother, and there’s a draining concoction of gratefulness and concern. We pray for him that evening at that office, hoping he’ll make it through the night.

He does, and the next morning he’s flown to Khartoum, where his skull is x-rayed and it’s discovered that there are bone fragments piercing the brain, causing critical swelling. He undergoes emergency brain surgery to remove the shards and relieve the swelling, and by some miracle survives that too.

I spend several more days in Nyala, debriefing with the team, floaing through a strange sense of the surreal. My experience is at once intensely tangible and seared onto my brain in visceral clarity, and yet has left me oddly emotionally calm. I feel no grief, I sleep well, my appetite is not diminished. Although I get a little anxious retelling the story of what happened, the psychologist who is flown in to counsel us informs me I’m healthy and that I shouldn’t expect to experience any symptoms of psychological harm as a result of the experience. She’s right, and I don’t.

I leave Khartoum on an Emirates flight, in business class which the insurance company has agreed to pay for because my itinerary has had to be changed, and these are the only available seats; I’m very glad that we have an emergency travel policy.

The day I leave, I visit Essam and Mohammed. They’re both staying at our team-house in Khartoum for a few days before returning to Nyala. We’re glad to see each other, and as we re-tell our stories- with Mohammed for the first time- both men shed tears. Later I visit Abdul in hospital. He is happy to see me. He’s there with his family, about eight of them living out of a dingy room, but thankfully he’s got privacy from the rest of the hospital.

He doesn’t get up, which doesn’t surprise me, but it’s only later I realise it’s because the injury to his brain has left him paralysed down one side of his body. Although he regains some of his movement and the pain diminishes, he still hasn’t made a full recovery. He still works for the same organisation, but is confined to desk work, and walks with a cane. His is the one sad legacy from an experience that is otherwise miraculous- but even here, his survival is in the face of overwhelming odds.

The same is true for all of us. This particular set of circumstances could have been rolled on cosmic dice a hundred times, and in ninety-nine of those cases, not all of us would have lived.

The flight is delayed a little out of Khartoum. I wait in the business-class lounge with growing anxiety, and in my mind I recall that same sense of foreboding I had waiting for the helicopter to evacuate us from Bul-Bul, but thirty minutes behind schedule I’m shown through to a brand new business-class seat that goes completely flat. It’s going to take me twenty hours to get back to Melbourne and I know I should sleep. But it’s way too nice a berth for me to waste time unconscious, and I sit awake for several hours, sip white wine, and watch movies.

The constant hum of the engines eventually lulls me to sleep.

End

Images:

1. Untitled, from http://www.operationbrokensilence.com: ‘Rebuilding Darfur: How do we do it?’ (link embedded in photo)

2. From http://www.time.com: ‘Darfur Descends into Chaos’ (link embedded in photo)

The Ambush (Part 2 of 3): Flight

Note: This is the second in a three-part account of a security incident I was involved with in late 2007, in Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region.  Click here to read the first part.  I’m sharing this story for World Humanitarian Day (19 August), which honours aid workers, and remembers those killed and injured in the line of duty.

Please note that the story contains an account of violence that readers who have been exposed to critical incidents themselves may find disturbing.

Flight

“Stop the car!” I yell, looking back at the three wounded men behind me. “I need to help them.”

We’re twenty yards from the scene of the shooting. Issa is wrestling with the wheel, trying to steer the Land Cruiser in deep sand with one tyre shot out. He gives me a single look that says, You’re crazy, white man, forget it, and I instantly see the logic in his decision and I feel foolish. In a day during which I reckon I did a fair job of keeping my cool, this was the one moment where I definitely said something stupid.

I’m a Wilderness First Responder, and the sight of my three colleagues, injured and worse, makes me anxious to do something.

“Give me my first aid kits,” I tell Essam instead. I have two. He rifles through my pack and passes them to me. Unzipping one I pull out a pair of surgical gloves. The first one I try to pull onto my sweating hands tears, and I throw it away in frustration before unsatisfactorily fumbling two more on. It’s a simple gesture, a selfish (and ultimately futile) act to protect me from whatever bodily fluids I’m about to deal with when I finally get my hands onto my patients. It’s Mohammed who later tells me that this is the point when he starts to feel like they are going to be okay, that somebody with them knows how to help.

I wish for his confidence.

We bounce through the bush, the car banging loudly around the dusty potholes. The first vehicle starts rolling before we reach it, and the two of us lurch off in convoy again, as fast as we can over the broken terrain. As I look helplessly at the heavily-bleeding Abdul, I continue to pull items from my first-aid kit I think might be useful- spare gloves, a variety of bandages and gauze.

We pull up and stop. The first vehicle is waiting for us in a sandy clearing. We haven’t come far, just a couple of minutes. I guess maybe a kilometre, not more than two. It feels uncomfortably vulnerable, but I’m now thinking of the three shot men in the back and how to stop them from getting worse.

We yank open the back doors and start to manhandle Abdul out of the vehicle. Both Essam and Mohammed can walk unassisted. I try to tell them both not to help with the carrying because I don’t want them exacerbating any wounds they might have. They don’t listen, and anyway, Abdul is too heavy. I guess he’s at least a hundred kilos, and we need the hands on.

I try to explain to them how to carry him without twisting his spine as I’ve been taught, but now we’re having language difficulties. I’m speaking loudly and quickly without realising it, the adrenaline still coursing through my arteries, and I’m barely making sense to myself, let alone the rest of them who are Arabic mother-tongue. I try to support his head as best I can while they lug his limp body out of the back and set him in the sand. Within seconds I’m soaked in his blood. It’s smeared all down my front and my gloves are wet with the stuff.

Abdul is bleeding heavily and he’s my main focus, but I’m aware that I have two other men, both also wounded, one of whom looks really bad. My attention can only go one way at a time however and I focus on Abdul’s head-wound. It’s nasty. The bullet seems to have skipped off his cranium and it’s torn the scalp apart into three large flaps. I can see the pink-white of his skull where everything else has been ripped away. I’ve never had to deal with anything like this before.

The blood is dribbling past my fingers. I squeeze the pieces of scalp back into place then press it tight in an effort to stop the fluid loss. My gloves are slick and I have to ask Essam to open a pack of gauze for me because my digits can’t get purchase on the plastic wrapping. I clamp that into place over the wounds and keep the pressure on. The pad is soaked through in moments. The blood is curious- it is warm when it splashes onto my hands, but then quickly cools in the Sahelian breeze. Through the microfibrous gloves I can feel the texture of Adbul’s scalp beneath my fingertips. It is wet and spongy, the tight curls of his hair now sticky.

I press hard and watch dark beads of fluid gather in the sand as they form a dirty puddle. Essam is crouching beside him, trying to talk to his friend. Abdul is conscious but it’s hard to communicate with him. We’re all having a hard time hearing, our ears still ringing from the impact of the gunshots. Abdul is shocky and not able to understand everything that’s said to him. I’m talking too fast and Essam is having trouble interpreting my requests. I’m trying to gauge Abdul’s level of consciousness, but I can’t get through all the questions before something else happens. I try and take his pulse, but my fingers are throbbing in the aftermath of the surging adrenaline.

I look at Essam and at the bullet-hole in his arm. There’s blood wetting down the front of his sleeve and the material is torn, but he doesn’t seem to notice. Every time I ask him about it he dismisses it and returns his attention to Abdul. I’m worried in that wounds can be deceptive to those who receive them, but he’s showing no signs of shock or internal blood-loss, and the fluids leaking out of him aren’t prolific either. I do my informal triage and move on.

Mohammed scares me more. He’s standing a little to one side, looking a fragile but oddly calm as he watches on. I’ve never seen so much blood on one person before. There’s a slick stringy substance all down his chest and I’m terrified he’s taken a bullet through the lungs but can’t feel it courtesy of shock. He tells me he’s fine, but I don’t trust him until he’s taken his shirt off and turned around for me while I watch him, still kneeling at Abdul’s head and clamping off the bleeding.

Mohammed’s only wound appears to be the one to his head, and that’s now nearly stopped bleeding. The rest has come, he says, from Abdul, who fell on top of him. I later learn that both he and Abdul were knocked unconscious in that first barrage of shooting when both were struck in the head, and he has no recollection of the rest of the ambush.

I look over and I see the two drivers gathered around a jack. I think to myself, What are they doing changing a tyre at a time like this? I don’t learn about the shot wheel until later in the day, and to this day still have no recollection of the additional rounds fired into the vehicle. I find the process disturbing, however, as I’m starting to feel very exposed. We’ve been out here for several minutes, and I’m starting to have images of the gunmen re-emerging from the bush and reneging on their decision to let us walk.

Abdul is plunging into shock. In my limited experience with patients I’ve never come across anything like it, although I know exactly what’s happening. His skin temperature plummets and he sweats hard. He’s in a great deal of pain and his eyes are rolling around a lot. He and Essam are talking as best they can. It’s taken mere minutes, but he’s cold to the touch and his colour is a sickly purple hue. After a couple of minutes, he retches. We roll him onto his side and let him vomit bile into the sand. It’s Ramadan, and none of the men have eaten or drunk anything. This realisation and its implications for patient care hit me immediately.

I look up, and Issa is sweeping the mat of broken glass and congealing blood out of the back of the vehicle, where it clumps into the sand. I feel a burst of desperate irritation. I just want us moving. I don’t know where we’re moving to, because we’re only getting further away from Nyala, but I know we can’t stay here. But the ex-policeman is, once again, right.

I again give poor directions to the guys as we load Abdul head-first back onto the floor of the four-wheel-drive. I control his head and try and position him as comfortably as possible. I manouevre him into the recovery position so that he can keep throwing up as needed. He tells me his head hurts. He’s in a lot of pain. In moving him the bleeding has started up again and I try and get it back under control, while keeping his body in position and protecting his head and spine. I crouch on the balls of my feet beside him on the floor of the vehicle and it’s awkward.

We drive. The journey is hell. I don’t know where we’re going, I don’t know how long we’ll take to get there. I do know that the closest thing to medical care is in the other direction, and between us and it is the ambush site. We have no option but to press on into the bush.

Physically, it’s tortuous for me. I can’t begin to think what it is for Abdul. The car pitches and jolts across the back-country terrain. I’m locked into a crouch, holding a heavy man on his side, trying to stop him from rolling back, trying to protect his head from banging each time we yaw into a pit, trying to keep him from bleeding out. Every couple of minutes he vomits again, bringing up more bile, or just dry retching. Before long my legs and back are screaming with the pain of the position I’m holding.

The fear is worse. Because I’m not longer really doing anything, this is the first time I’ve really had a chance to be scared. In some ways this seems odd, because the rest of us appear to be out of danger, but then we’re still in a war-zone, and we have no idea what lies ahead. There could be another ambush. My imagination spins. I wonder what will happen if we’re stopped and they find that everything of value has already been taken? Maybe they’ll just execute us on the spot. I look down at Abdul and I know he’s in mortal danger. I wonder whether he’s going to die in my arms. When I look at Essam and Mohammed, crouched in the back with me, I see the same fear.

We pray, Muslim and Christian together. I to Jesus, they to Allah. I in English, they in Arabic. We agree with each others’ words. I punctuate my agreements with al-Hamdulillah: Thanks be to God. Crouched over our mortally wounded friend, there’s no religion. Only faith.

I don’t know how long we travel for, but in hindsight I guess it’s somewhere shy of half an hour. Then we reach Bul-Bul.

Bul-Bul

I don’t really get a chance to see it as we arrive, and my memory is one of a tremendous sense of relief as I learn that we’re pulling up to a police checkpoint. After the journey we’ve just had, it feels for the first time that I can breathe normally again. My concentration is still on Abdul, but I’m briefly overwhelmed by a sense of lightness.

Emmanuel and the driver in the first vehicle begin to explain our situation to the soldiers at the checkpoint. No sooner is the sense of relief over me than I feel a pang of irritation. We’ve got a guy who could be dying here, I scream in my mind. Stop messing us around.

Curious faces appear at the window. I glower at them. Their expressions visibly yaw as they take in the four of us in the back, dressed in macabre crimson robes, then wave us hurriedly on with orders to go straight to the health hut.

We pull up outside the little compound. The village is classic Sahel. It’s open and set amidst a cleared area in the grassland. Round mud-walled huts with dry reeds for roofing- I know them as Tukuls– are dotted around at generous intervals. Some properties are walled with cracked-mud walls. There are patches of grass, and patches where the grass has been trodden into hard-packed ground.

The health-hut is a simple two-roomed mud-brick clinic staffed by a small grey-haired man who I learn is a trained nurse. We look around for something to use as a stretcher and eventually settle on a bench that we load Abdul onto and manouevre inside, setting it on the poured-concrete floor. The nurse immediately puts a drip into the man- an act I have no doubt saved his life- while I find more gauze and set about stopping the bleeding that has once more resumed.

People are moving everywhere. Things are still frenetic. Emmanuel explains to the officials what has happened, then he goes to try and raise Nyala. The two vehicles have both had CODAN HF radios fitted in the past, but both are defunct. Our Motorollas don’t have the range on them to reach the city, and there’s no cell network out here. There are rumours of a landline telephone and he and the driver disappear in an effort to find it.

With Abdul temporarily stabilised, the nurse and I turn our attention to Essam and Mohammed for the first time. Essam’s wound looks relatively minor. A bullet or significant portion of one has pierced his right bicep, a clean entry wound like a pair of pursed lips and no exit; we guess the slug is resting close to the bone. He still has movement (I can’t get him to stop moving it) and the bleeding has stopped. He refuses any fuss over the thing and quickly steps out to help Emmanuel arrange our evac. Ordinarily gracious with a quiet tone and manner, he seems to be smouldering this afternoon, and I sense a fierce anger in him that he none the less keeps to himself. Later, the word I find wraps itself around him with ease is ‘stoic’.

Mohammed is cheerful but a little weak. His loss of consciousness coupled with poor food and fluid intake means he’s fragile, and the nurse takes him to the other room and puts him on a drip too. Later he gets his head bandaged. In a while, when Abdul’s wound finally stops bleeding, I go in to see him where he rests on a guerney. He smiles sadly but his words are encouraging, and he assures me he’s fine. We have a discussion as to whether or not God will frown on him for having a drip when he’s supposed to be fasting. I’m humbled. Later, he sleeps.

Outside, Essam and Emmanuel are trying to get the news through to Nyala that there’s been a security incident and we need an emergency evacuation. It’s that, or drive back the way we came, and that doesn’t appeal as an option.

I only hear Emmanuel’s side of the story much later. How when they hear the gunshots they move forward a safe distance, then wait for us to come. How they try to reach us on the radio they get nothing back. Then a garbled message saying we’re on our way, and to go quickly.

Emmanuel tells me without shame how when the vehicles first stop and Abdul is carried semi-conscious from the back of the truck, he sees us all covered in blood and he’s so stunned he can do nothing but stand there and stare. How when he reaches Bul-Bul he stays in the car for ten minutes talking to the police officers and explaining what happened, not because he doesn’t want to get out and do anything else, but because his legs are shaking so hard he can’t physically stand. I think of my own fingers, throbbing with adrenaline, and I understand fully.

***

I stay with Abdul. My training says I should continue to care for my patient until I hand him over to somebody more qualified to look after him. Ordinarily a nurse would suffice, but I have no idea how well trained or experienced this one is.  I can’t speak to him, and I doubt he’s been prepped to deal with gunshot wounds. Drip aside, he’s certainly not paying much attention to Abdul, save to periodically check his heart-rate, which he doesn’t write down and doesn’t share with me. I’m worried, because I want to monitor his vitals, but I’ve lost my translator and can’t communicate with the nurse to see what he thinks. I try to take Abdul’s pulse myself, but my own fingers are still trembling and all I can feel is my own heartbeat racing through them. This won’t change for the rest of the afternoon.

Curious villagers come to see the commotion. Women, weeping tears of sympathy, gather around Abdul’s bed and coo. Then the soldiers barge in. They’re local militia, government-allied troops there to maintain safety. On the one hand I’m kind of pleased to have them nearby because it gives me hope we won’t be attacked in the next few hours. But they’ve come into the small cell out of morbid curiosity. They quickly fill the space, jostling around shoulder-to-shoulder to see the injured man. I grow tense when one inadvertently pokes my face with the muzzle of his Kalashnikov assault-rifle as he manouevres for a view. A little too close to recent events for comfort. I start to shoo them outside, and then we barricade the doors with a bench to stop more intruders.

I start to feel exhausted. It’s now early afternoon, a couple of hours since the attack. Abdul is in and out of consciousness. He speaks, but is having a hard time hearing. He tells me often in broken English that his head hurts. We wrap him in a blanket to counteract the chills of shock, and eventually move him onto a table so the warm draft can’t get at him from underneath. Then he complains he’s too hot. We strip off the blanket and I wet his fingers and fan them to cool his bloodstream. He still vomits periodically. One time he brings up some pink blood in his bile, and I have a pang of panic, but reassure myself that he’s probably ruptured a vessel in his gut from all the retching. Flies buzz. It doesn’t smell great in here.

I use my walkie-talkie to find out what’s going on from the others who have spread out in the village, but news is vague. They’ve managed to contact HQ who have been in touch with the Africa Union peackeeping base in Nyala. A chopper is being despatched. It’ll be here very soon. Maybe in the next half an hour. But half an hour passes. Then another. And a third. I start to feel very, very tired. Somebody brings me a bottle of water. I look at Abdul. He’s not cold any more, but I’m worried about him. I know he’s lost a lot of blood, and I don’t know enough about drips to know what effect they have, or whether he needs another one. I’m concerned about decompensatory shock, but because I can’t access his vitals I can’t tell what’s going on. I only know that he’s disoriented and showing signs of head injury, which is a bit of a no-brainer really, as he’s been shot in the head.

I take a walk outside to get fresh air and clear my head. I greet some women sitting in the courtyard and they look at me with wide eyes, returning ‘Salaam Aleikum‘ with hesitation. I realise I look horrible. I am drenched in drying blood. It’s splattered on my cap, it’s on my face, it’s soaked into my vest and into my pant-legs, it’s all over my boots and it’s caked solidly up to my elbows. I’m directed to a lightless side-room where there’s a plastic jug with a stopcock on it. I scrub at my hands and the water flows from my fingers pink. I discover that I’ve been cut by shrapnel and flying glass. There’s a thin cut running up my elbow from where my hand rested along the seat-back when the first blasts blew out the windows. Later I’ll find several bullet splinters embedded in the flesh of my upper arm.

Out in the courtyard there’s a debate going on. I see two olive-colored pickup trucks with a bunch of uniformed gunmen in them. One has a fifty-cal machine-gun mounted onto the cab. Elsewhere it’d be called a ‘Technical‘. Emmanuel and Essam are discussing what to do next. The soldiers have offered to escort us back up the road to Nyala with their guns. We still have no confirmation as to when- or even if- a chopper is really inbound. What do I think?

I consider driving back through the ambush site and my stomach clenches. I recall the roar of gunfire pounding through the Land Cruiser. In my mind I imagine what a stray burst of bullets would do fired out of the bush as we pass by once more, and I have all the fodder I need. I think it’s truly terrifying. Then I think back to the journey away from the attack site, crouching holding Abdul’s body. I think of the pain in my own body. I think of the way his head slammed against the floor and against the bulkhead each time the car hit a rut. I know there’s no way I can manage him for over an hour back to Nyala like that, and I’m pretty dubious about his chances of survival in his fragile state. I tell them as much, pointing out I can’t guarantee that he’ll make it back home if we do that. They nod, take my counsel on board, and to my great relief, agree that they’ll wait for the chopper for now.

The thought of spending the night out here with Abdul slowly waning doesn’t fill me with hope, but selfishly it’s still infinitely preferable to riding back along that road.

I wander with Essam and Issa to our Land Cruiser. It’s the first time I’ve seen it properly. It’s a grounding sight. Glass in most of the side-windows on both sides of the truck has been shot out. There are bullet holes in the fuselage. One above the driver’s door a couple of inches above the man’s head.

I don’t really do the maths until later. It’s funny what sticks in your head. For some utterly illogical reason I assumed just three shots were fired, because I heard three loud bangs. This fit with the three bullet wounds that my colleagues had. Seeing the car for the first time, I begin to realise this is far from the case. More likely, the gunman just squeezed off whatever was in his magazine.

I climb inside. Blood is dried everywhere. Splashed on the seats and pooled on the floor. Dribbled down the inside walls. I think of photos I’ve seen from the Middle East after militants are assassinated in their vehicles- broken glass, bullet-holes, dark red-brown stains.

I look forward. The strut behind my seat has taken rounds. Two dark holes are torn into the frame, inches behind my back, between myself and Essam. A third has gone straight through the bolt mounting the shoulder-strap of my safety-belt into the vehicle, right behind my head. I take the information in with considerable detachment. It doesn’t really compute just yet, but it explains why I’m still having a hard time hearing anything out of my right ear.

I try again to find out what’s going on with the chopper. It’s now mid-afternoon, but I have the same response. They’ve been told the chopper will be coming soon. But nobody knows whether it’s actually left Nyala yet, or if we’re being told something by somebody who doesn’t know anything.

I go back inside to sit with Abdul. He’s in and out of consciousness and when he’s with it, he tries to smile and tell me he’s okay, but he’s in a lot of pain. I can’t possibly know it right now, but the impact of the bullet slamming into his head has fractured his skull and shoved two splinters of bone into his brain tissue. He’s paralyzed on one side of his body, and his blood-pressure is becoming critically low.

I wander to the window that looks out over fields and the bush at the back of the village, and in my mind’s eye I see hordes of Janjawid fighters hurtling towards us. I really, badly want to be gone from this place.

Part 3: Evac, next

Images:

1. Stuart Price/African Union Mission in the Sudan, via Reuters, from http://www.david-kilgour.com: ‘Despite Aid, Malnutrition in Darfur Rises’ (link embedded in photo)

2. Uncredited, from http://www.studentsoftheworld.info (link embedded in photo)

World Humanitarian Day 2010: The Ambush (Part I of 3)

Tommorrow, August 19, is World Humanitarian Day. As I shared with you last year, it exists to commemorate the lives of the tens of thousands of people who work in disasters and emergencies in an effort to help people affected by tragedy and hardship. Held for the first time last year, it also remembers those who lay down their lives in the line of such work. On August 19, 2004, a truck-bomb was driven into the compound being used as the UN headquarters in Baghdad. 22 people, including the UN’s top humanitarian worker in Iraq, were killed in the aftermath.

The bombing of the Canal Hotel marked a shift in the aid context, after which humanitarian workers were increasingly seen as targets by people who- in contravention of international law- chose to attack them, whether for ideological, political or financial motivation.

It would be nice to be able to say that this trend is decreasing. However last year (as I’ve written previously) a higher portion of humanitarian workers were violently killed, injured or abducted than UN Peacekeeping soldiers. Earlier this year, seven staff working for the international NGO World Vision were corralled by extremists into their office in northern Pakistan and murdered with guns and grenades. Two weeks ago today, ten staff with the long-standing and highly-respected International Assistance Mission in Afghanistan were stopped on the road and executed, an attack claimed by the Taliban. There are many other incidents that happen each year, which get little notice globally, beyond the small community of international humanitarian workers.

In this vein I want to share with you a story that happened to several colleagues and I with the organisation I was working for at the time, during a field visit in Sudan’s volatile Darfur region. Those of you familiar with Darfur in late 2007 may recall details of the incident itself. The story is not a light one, and for those of you reading this who may have been exposed to violent situations yourselves, I’d ask you to exercise some discretion in deciding whether you want to keep reading.

In any critical incident it’s natural that memories of what happened differ slightly among various witnesses. During several rounds of debrief, both official and informal, several of us, including the three of us who were able to recall the whole incident, told our stories repeatedly, and they came up remarkably similar. The story below is my own perspective, but it matches closely enough to those of the others that discrepancies are insignificant, and gives a coherent and pretty accurate overview of what happened.

This is the first time in nearly three years that I’ve succeeded in writing out this account in its entirety, although I’ve told the story multiple times face-to-face, including to the Herald Sun who ran an article on it in early October 2007. I’ll share this over three consecutive posts, as it’s quite long (in true MoreAltitude style- would you expect anything less?).

Background

For those of you not familiar with Darfur, it’s a large and highly impoverished region in the west of northern Sudan. Roughly the size of France, it has a population of a little over 6 million people. Due to a complicated array of factors- including political disenfranchisement, social marginalization, religious colonialism, disputes over mineral resource rights, and tensions over natural resources such as water points and pasture land for cattle- a civil revolt took place in 2003 against the Khartoum-based government. Several rebel groups were involved, the largest and most significant being the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).

Khartoum responded by sending in conventional forces, and also armed a militia group, the Janjawid, with interests in the area (allegedly populating some of its ranks with released prisoners). A brutal put-down ensued in which the civilian population bore the brunt of the violence. Thousands were killed, and up to three hundred thousand reportedly died from the knock-on effects of the war (displacement, disease, malnutrition). Villages were burned to the ground. A quarter of a million people fled to the deserts of eastern Chad, and two to three million fled to displaced persons camps in sites around the region.

The situation remained fluid and complex. The government lost control of the Janjawid, and the rebels split after various members signed different agreements with the government. Pre-existing ethnic tensions and resource disagreements created new lines of conflict in an area that was largely anarchic. Peacekeepers, under-resourced, without a clear mandate, and further crippled by Khartoum’s meddling, were unable to cover the vast, roadless terrain, and for the most part remained bunkered down behind wire fences in their bases.

By late 2007, the warfighting had broken down into a highly complex series of sub-conflicts with shifting battlefronts and alliances that changed weekly. There were at least twenty-seven different warring factions, and that number was changing. Banditry was rife. NGOs, habitually unarmed, made easy targets from which radios, vehicles and money could be pilfered with little risk or resistance. Between 4 and 5 million of Darfur’s population were considered ‘war-affected’, and at least half that number were reliant on UN and NGO support in some way.

I travelled to Darfur in September of that year on a brief support mission, to check in on some of the projects my office was funding in Darfur, and to spend time with our office in Nyala (capital of South Darfur) to see how they were doing, and what could be done to support them better. About a week into my trip, I went on what was planned to be a multi-day field visit south and west of Nyala, towards an area called Rehed-al-Birdi. I was with six colleagues, travelling in a pair of clearly-marked NGO Land Cruisers. We anticipated it would take us about four hours to reach our destination for the day.

Part I: Ambush

After the shooting stops, what I notice most is the silence. It is humming, tangible, pressing itself with force into my ears like some wrapped cloak protecting me from reality. But any sense of protection must be an illusion.

There’s no crying. No shouts of pain. Nobody yelling ‘Get Down!‘ Just that pressurised whine inside my head telling me something’s wrong.

I’m lying across the bench-seat at the front of the four-by-four, head towards Issa the driver who’s down here with me. My nose is inches from the dials of the heater and tape-deck. Black, plastic, slightly rimed with dust. The image of this mundane feature of the dashboard is seared onto my brain with crystal clarity even years later, so intensely is my brain seizing data.

Beads of safety glass have exploded across the inside of the vehicle. They’re sharp-edged little gems of crystalline aqua-marine and they’ve doused the foot-wells, blanketed the front seat, accumulated like blown sand in the creases in my utility vest.

The first conscious thought that goes through my head I hear with startling clarity: This is it. It’s really happening. It’s not a drill this time.

It’s followed moments later by a prayer, shot flare-like skywards in a moment of desperate faith: Jesus, I put this situation into your hands right now and trust you to get us out of here.

I stay very, very still and realise with a curious detachment that these may be my last moments alive.

It will be hours before I realise just how close I am to being right.

Earlier

The confluence of tiny decisions and circumstances that lead to the resolution of an event of magnitude can seem almost fickle. So minute are the influences that you’re left with a stark choice as, in truly human fashion, you build a narrative around them: either chance is supreme, without mercy or interest, and any coincidence is at best the random interaction of a million events preceding it or some outworking of chaos principles to which people are programmed to ascribe motive; or there is indeed some being we call God, whose fingerprints we find on those spectacular moments that define our lives, and by inference, the mundane and profane happenstance of our daily existence as well.

I recall the prickling sensation I have on the back of my neck standing at the checkout counter while replenishing my first-aid kit from a local pharmacy a week before leaving Australia; an odd sense I’m aware of even then that I’ll be needing the supplies.

I remember, today taking due note of irony, the fervour with which I wrestle my visa from the hands of the hostile bureaucracy of the Sudanese Embassy in London, and the relief I feel reaching Heathrow Airport with just forty minutes to spare before my flight.

I see myself sitting on the British Airways jetliner between Amman and Khartoum, dark in the middle of the night, a flight so empty that there are more flight attendants than passengers, and I am the only person sitting between bulkheads, musing on why nobody would want to be going to Sudan right now.

The entire trip to Darfur almost unravels when, upon reaching Khartoum, I discover that the local admin staff have failed to lodge my travel papers, and I spend a frantic three days unspooling red tape just so I can escape the capital. Speeding myself towards events of which I have no awareness.

***

Then the minutae of that morning, leaving Nyala. Events that don’t seem relevant in any way in the moment, and yet ultimately give rise to the fractions of seconds and tiny angles of trajectory that mean the difference between death and survival for five of us. Forgetting my travel documents in the compound so that we waste forty minutes going back to collect them. Waiting even longer on the edge of a dusty wadi at the end of town for Abdul. He isn’t meant to be in our vehicle at all but is hitching a ride down to Rehed to see his mother on his week off.

Before leaving the team house that morning, I go back to my room to put more money in my pockets. Just in case we’re stopped and robbed, I tell myself. It’s a principle we’re taught in security training.

I never hear about the local staff member who, walking through the Nyala market that morning, overhears rumours that there’s hostile activity on the road we’re going to be travelling. He deigns to tell his superiors that little gem of a factoid, and our mission is cleared to depart.

***

We stop beyond the second police checkpoint with the other vehicle, just as we hit the bush, and the four of us with walkie-talkies do a quick radio-check. We switch from the town channel to the one we can use out in the field and make sure we can all talk to one another. After just one week out here the Motorolla VHF handset already feels natural on my hip.

Then we’re traveling across the Sahel, all brown dust and long white grass and knots of leafy thorn bushes. The road is an unsealed vehicle track, double-rutted and sloughed with sand. We’re passing goat herders who show no signs of alarm. Emptied villages. Dry river-beds which we slow down to ford. A transport, passengers waving to us as they come towards us. No signs of danger. We’re all looking.

We’re the second vehicle. In the first is Ghanaian Emmanuel, the team leader, with a driver. We keep a distance from them. Two days ago we had two vehicles involved in an ambush on a road north of here. Because they were riding too closely together, both were snatched in one go. We don’t want that happening to us.

Behind me, back to the glass on the ambulance-style bench-seats, sits Essam- tall, gentle and quiet, with large hands. Opposite him is media man Mohammed, a warm, charming Sudanese man with a voice soft like a plush carpet. Next to Mohammed is Abdul- rotund, cheerful, loudly spoken. He speaks little English and although I’ve just met him we’ve been exchanging spurts of dialogue in our shoddy representations of each others’ tongues. I’ve recently learned Mafi Mushkila. Loosely translated, it means No Worries. I say it, and everybody laughs. Then I lapse into silence and watch the bush slip by.

They’re the last words I have any recollection of before the ambush.

None of us sees the uniformed gunman hiding in the bush to the left of the track as we slow to pass through a tight copse of woody brush. We know nothing of his stance as he raises the AKM assault rifle, whether he fires from the hip or whether the butt is ensconced in his shoulder. We never see his expression, and we can only guess vaguely at his thoughts as he pulls the trigger and rakes the weapon in a single burst from tail to nose, at head-height through the windows of our passing Toyota.

I hear an ugly noise like the roar of machinery, and for a split second my reaction is one of annoyance as I’m catapulted from my private thoughts. I hear three very loud, distinct, bangs, as though a body-builder is driving a sledge-hammer against a steel box, with myself on the inside. I think, for just an instant, that Issa has struck an overhanging branch.

And then, I don’t really remember how, I’m on my side, staring at the tape deck and covered with shattered glass.

Held

Long seconds ooze by. The vehicle is stationary, idling. Issa and I don’t move. I hear nothing from behind us. I sense our attacker is still there. I’m waiting for a face to appear at the driver’s side window, for a burst of gunfire to hose us down while we lie there, but there’s nothing.

So I raise my hands.

Gradually, cautiously. I inch my fingertips up above the level of the dash, keeping my head low. If they start shooting again, and I feel they might, I want to be able to get down in a hurry. I feel spectacularly vulnerable, and almost as though I’m slowly immersing my fingers into molten steel. But there’s no more gunfire yet. So with a feeling of considerable disbelief, I raise my head, first brow, then eyes, then finally face visible.

I see a second gunman, one I didn’t know about, standing in front of the vehicle about twenty paces away beside the bush he’d been concealed behind. His rifle is pointing at me through the windshield. I keep my hands up and my movements slothful. I don’t know it yet, but the reason Issa has had to stop the vehicle is that this guy put two rounds into the front tyre, inches from my knee-cap.

Issa’s up now as well. The first gunman, the one who did all the shooting, is at his window. Words are spoken. Issa opens his door and gets out. There’s urgency in his movements. I allow a slight turn of my head to watch what’s happening without making it look like I’m staring. I catch a glimpse of the back seat. I can tell there are people lying down. Nobody’s moving and nobody’s making any sound. There’s blood everywhere, but I can’t tell what’s going on, and now isn’t the time. I keep my hands raised. In a distant place I’m aware of a slight burning sensation along the skin of my left elbow but it’s not a concern right now.

Now Issa’s around to my side of the car. There are words spoken. The gunmen are angsty.

My radio chatters to life. It’s the first car. Emmanuel. They’ve heard the shots and have stopped a couple of hundred yards ahead in the bush, out of sight. They want to know if we’re okay.

One of the gunmen says something.

“Turn it off,” Issa orders. The driver is a former policeman, I later learn. His cool responsiveness and obedient attitude, as well as his ability to translate for me, doubtless save our lives.

I do as I’m told.

“Should I get out?” I ask. Issa nods.

“Get out,” he tells me.

I move slowly, keeping one hand up, using fingers to unlatch the door. I step out onto the tuft of thick grass beside the four-by-four, and there I anchor myself. In the ambush two days ago, the attackers were interrupted by another vehicle on the road and fled. At the time they were in the process of leading our team at gunpoint into the bush, purpose unknown. The memory sticks. I have no intention of discovering for myself.

I’m focused now. There’s no sensation that you could describe as ‘fear’, only a very intense concentration on staying alive. I know that I can’t actually stop these guys killing me if they want to. I already have a pretty good idea that they’re capable of it. I don’t know what’s happened behind me, only that our clearly-marked vehicle has been fired on, and that now there are bodies lying in the back, bloodied and not moving. But if I can avoid doing anything to actually encourage them to shoot me, then I’m going to make it my mission over the next few minutes to make damn sure I do just that. I concentrate on my security training.

I’m wearing sunglasses. I’m conscious that in a situation like this you shouldn’t wear sunnies. It can appear arrogant, and angry men with guns can get the impression you’re staring them down- something you don’t want. The rule of thumb in surviving a hostage situation is to be invisible. Be polite and obedient without being subservient. You want to maintain your personal dignity and present yourself like a human being, because if you start to weep or beg or make yourself ‘less’ you make it easier for a gunman to see you as detached from humanity and easier to put down. Likewise you don’t want to challenge your assailant.

As I stand there, I seek that middle ground like my life depends on it- because it may well. I tilt my head slightly downwards so that they won’t think I’m eyeballing. And I stand straight, shoulders back, maintaining my personal space and making it clear I’m still in control of my posture. My lips are closed and straight. I breathe slowly and deeply through my nostrils.

Behind me, I don’t know this, but the first gunman is going systematically around each of the shot-out windows, reaching in, and robbing the three warm bodies lying back there.

I’m still looking down, taking in the black boots of the second gunman, ten paces from me not moving and his weapon still locked on me. When the first approaches me, I don’t look up. I see his woodland-camouflage uniform, and the muzzle of his AKM assault rifle as it presses into the folds of my utility vest where my solar-plexus is.

Hands go through my pockets. They find a Swiss Army knife. It’s tossed into the long grass and I don’t see it again. Then I’m left alone.

There’s quiet. Things are very tense. There’s a tangible malice in the air. I’ve only felt it a couple of times in my life and it’s a very unpleasant feeling. Being watched, by something that wants to do you harm. In my minds eye I have detached from myself, and I’m looking down as if from above. I see myself, standing by the open door of the Land Cruiser. I see the two gunmen, one at my twelve o’clock, ten paces out, and the other at my ten o’clock, five paces out. Issa is standing close by as well. I can feel the guns on me, both of them, as though little dotted lines are running from their muzzles straight to my torso; it makes my skin tingle. I’m experiencing very little emotion, but considerable discomfort, like something is terribly, terribly wrong.

I have the distinct thought, if they’re going to shoot me I hope they don’t do it in the gut. The same mind’s eye is projecting an image of me, lying curled in a ball beside the wheel of the Land Cruiser, dying slowly and alone. I still have no fear, but the thought is an unpleasant one regardless.

The sense of malice lingers. I’m worried now. They’ve shot us up, and now they’ve robbed us. Why aren’t they leaving? Why are they still here?

I make a decision to do something. If I keep standing here in the open I’m worried they might decide to take me with them, just by default.  I look at Issa.

“Can I get back in the car?”

“Yes, get back in.”

I ease my way back into the front seat under watching eyes. I keep my hands visible, always slow.

Then I hear conversation. It is slightly agitated. I hear the English word ‘Money‘.

“Do you want money?” I ask. “I have money.”

Issa confirms this is what they’re asking for. I reach into my top pocket and find the stuffed banknotes. There’s about one-fifty in USD, another fifty in local currency. I hold these out, and they’re taken from my hand.

Still they linger.

I’m really uncomfortable now. I don’t know what’s going on, but they’re talking among themselves. This is taking a long time. Issa is listening. I keep my hands up and try not to make it seem like I’m staring. I want this to be done now. It’s probably only a few minutes- two or three at the most- since the first shots were fired, but it feels like hours. It doesn’t make sense that they’re still here.

Behind me, a walkie-talkie squawks. It’s the first vehicle again. I find out later it’s Essam’s radio.

Then, with no further word or warning, the two gunmen turn and head into the bush. Issa darts for the driver’s door.

I turn in my seat and see that Essam is sitting upright behind me. He’s been shot in the arm. Kneeling in the well, Mohammed is upright too, but he looks horrible. His shirt is shiny, his entire torso saturated with wet crimson. There’s blood running in star-like limbs from the crown of his head where a bullet has cut his scalp. In his arms, he’s holding Abdul. The big man is hanging limp, facing downwards. I can see the top of his head is open, and there’s blood dribbling from the wound in a steady thread of bright red, like a tap that hasn’t been turned off.

“Is he alive?” I ask. Mohammed nods. His face is grim. Then Issa is gunning the engine, and the car is sliding in the soft sand, and we lurch away from the ambush-site and onward into the bush.

Part II: Flight, tomorrow

Images:

1. Unsourced, taken from World Prout Assembly: ‘In Darfur, Terror from the Air’ (link embedded in photo)

2. Lynsey Addario for the New York Times, from blog jdasovic.com: ‘Janjawid Militia Renews Scorched-Earth Policy in Darfur’ (link embedded in photo)