Ben Wilhelmi

Pictures from South Sudan

 

 

Floods in the far bush.

Who designed the ugly contraption...

Common scenery. View from the aircraft.

 

 

 

 

Refugee camp, one of many...

Aerials, South Sudan

 

22 km of tarmac in the country, in 2015, but I doubt the situation has changed since then…

 

 

The White Nile.

 

 

A refugee camp partially flooded.

 

 

The White Nile.

 

 

Stranded villagers in the rain season.

 

South Sudan, aerial pictures

 

The mighty Nile, the White Nile in this area, has overflowed a bit. Notice the black spots which are huts.

 

A refugee camp. Flooded, it was built on low ground without any approval…

 

 

 

Interesting change of colors for these meeting rivers.

 

A village harbor just off Juba.

 

 

Aerial photography, South Sudan

 

Bush fires…really a nuisance for the pilots. We take off with a beautiful blue sky, climb to altitude for fuel efficiency and it’s like we’re flying in fog. We then really need our regular instruments for bad weather.

 

The White Nile.

 

 

Notice the remains of a shot down aircraft. The scumbag who runs that company preferred to blame the pilots because it was easier to claim the money without having to increase the premiums. I guess the insurance inspectors didn’t do a great job either or were bribed…

 

Just outside Juba airport.

 

 

A Mi 8 near Juba.

 

Juba and one the few km of tarmacked roads in the whole country. Sitting on all that wealth for nothing….

Aerials, South Sudan

 

A detail of the Nile.

 

A refugee camp partially submerged.

 

2 swamp areas. The one below has burnt. No idea why or how.

 

More swamp areas. Notice the village. Quite a risky location in areas so flat and prone to flooding.

 

And here is a good example of a village flooded.

 

 

South Sudan, aerials

 

The White Nile, not exactly a one body river. With my little experience in the country, it always seems comprised of smaller rivers, swamps and ponds…

 

 

A World Food Program center in Pibor.

 

A refugee camp entrance, Rubkona.

 

A flooded village. Notice the 2 colors for the flooding waters standing side by side, the villagers attempted a barrier which only seems to contain a different colored water.

 

 

 

A salt water body. It is quite contained on a square km or 2. Further the water looks normal again. No reference on the map.

Random pictures in South Sudan

 

The classic scam about witchcraft to recover lost love, job promotion, penis enlargement…

 

Indian contingent in Pibor. They are always fully geared up with weapons and bulletproof jackets to welcome aircraft and their supplies….

 

A mechanic working on a Mi 26 main rotor. One could build a nice little house in such a helicopter, like on a Boeing 727.

 

Surprise a Russian Mi 8 poorly parked on Yirol airstrip.

 

 

Juba, a Mi 8 hovering, faffing around before finally landing between parked Mi 8’s. Why not use the runway and taxi as usual…?

 

 

Swampy area alongside the Nile.

 

Tiny rapids on the Nile, Ugandan border.

 

Bush fire, Congolese border towards Yambio.

South Sudan, random pictures

 

 

A Mi 8 over the Nile, slow beasts, they are so easy to overtake.

 

A Belgian project in Bor. Some spelling mistakes on top of “Delgique”…Belgique would have looked nicer.

 

This kid and friends wait for passengers and carry their luggage.

 

A wheelbarrow will do too.

 

 

 

 

Middle of nowhere, Pibor. And nice manners have arrived here I have no clue how. Pilots? UN peacekeepers?

 

I always feel safer whenever I see a weapon to honor my arrival.

 

Juba, an Antonov 26 taking off after the rain.

Aerial photography in South Sudan

 

A flooded hamlet in September.

 

 

The White Nile near Bor.

 

The Nile near Juba.

 

A flooded village, Agok, 2 months ago.

 

One passenger was a saint?

 

The Nile.

 

A swamp somewhere near Pibor. Many swampy areas in South Sudan.

 

A flooded refugee camp, Rubkona.

 

A woman soaping herself on the road.

Aerial photography, South Sudan

 

A flooded village. The rains have been stronger and dragging longer than usual. That didn’t help the current humanitarian crisis.

 

 

In some areas, those wrecks litter the roads, like one every few km!. This Cruiser seems to have been blown up. Whatever was salvageable has been removed.

 

Bad news for those travellers. A break down in the middle of nowhere…

 

Stormy weather, minimal art.

 

 

Meet the White Nile.

Aerial photography, South Sudan

 

A few views of the White Nile…

 

 

 

 

 

 

A typical countryside road. So many potholes, so many zigzags…your mileage must be double what the map says.

 

South Sudan, aerial photography

 

Near a refugee camp, Rubkona. People don’t venture too far though. They need firewood, water, some goodies from the nearby village which is unfortunately held by rebels.

 

A World Food Program distribution center, Pibor. From this place I took 500kg of food back to Juba because of some administrative mistake. Mix the army with the UN rules, some bureaucracy and you’ve got the triple penalty…I’m sure the local people would have been more than happy to receive food some idiots refused for weird reasons I didn’t even want try to understand. The peacekeeper officer was pathetic. To me anyway.

 

The little White Nile. The Blue Nile from Ethiopia is massive with 95% of water and sediments. That’s the one that will be dammed soon and this worries the selfish Egyptians who think the whole Nile belongs to them.

 

Juba, the surburbs.

 

More of the Nile.

 

 

Some bad weather, usually it is very localised. Easy to circumnavigate.

 

Some hamlet nearby a WFP center. I guess some tarpaulins have been salvaged.

South Sudan, aerial photography

 

The rains have cooled down, somewhat, in South Sudan. Some airstrips stay closed more often than open. Here is the main road in a village, Rubkona. I hope this road, miles of it in the same condition, will discourage anybody to visit that awful place. Yesterday again, the pilots were reminding each other to avoid overflying the village for risk of being shoot by the rebels. The UNCHA staff also reports harassment from the regular troops, which hold the airstrip.

I got into troubles with some troops, more on a post soon.

 

Anyway…some other villages looked so peaceful. Nobody to be seen though. Maybe in hiding waiting for an airplane to aim at?

 

Here is a cropped image of such a village. Notice the multi layered roofs. No activity? Cattle, hanging clothes, garbage, a dog, some kids…?

 

Some places look so fancy…Flat, the same expanses of land on hundreds of miles around…Some huts. Hardly no farming though. What for, food is handed over anyway. Or wars perturb the harvests, the farmers… more than 3 million South Sudanese are still refugees.

 

A few minutes of peacefulness.

 

The Nile near Juba… The truck is a UN one, I gather there is a sanitary process for that water. Not guaranteed with civilian trucks like anywhere else in the 3rd world.

 

The White Nile, the famous Nile…not much in this part of the world. Ethiopia with its Blue Nile, provides almost all of it. But this is still the Nile…Not a Belgian river.

 

Part of the Nile near Bor. I have spotted these round grassy islands (I assume they are islands by the look of it). Are they floating? Pushed by the winds? I can’t explain the creation of these either, yet.

South Sudan, random pictures

 

Red Cross, World Food Program, Médecins Sans Frontières…quite a few humanitarian organisations are operating from Juba airport. This is a Caravan 208, the same model I fly on here in Juba.

 

The White Nile and its smaller meanders, ponds and various waterways. I wonder how fishermen find their way in there. I learnt that the Blue Nile from Ethiopia provides 95% of water and sediments to the Nile. No wonder the Egyptians squeal when they hear the word "dam" in Ethiopia. I had been wondering what kind of river this White Nile was. It never looks great in tern of water flow.

 

Some Russian mechanics used our airplane to salvage spare parts from an Antonov 26 in Lokichoggio. Here is a turbine exhaust pipe. The scary part was that the airplane and the dismounted engines had been exposed to the elements for years and these guys were planning to reuse the engines…

 

Some stickers need replacements…

 

The White Nile, this picture sums up pretty well the South Sudanese landscape along the Nile…

 

 

Rubkona, a HS 748 crashed on landing, pretty badly. One crew died, another one hasn’t fully recovered.

Nobody bothered to clean up the scattered bits.

 

Juba airport, some Ilyushin 76’s, noisy overloaded monsters.

Egypt, aerial photography

 

ferrying that Twin Otter back to Dubai, we had left Athens in the morning, reaching the Nile delta

Cairo, a huge urban sprawl that looks like a giant slum seen from high up…

The Nile south of Cairo, then we turned to the south east.

 

 

that narrow strip is the canal of Suez reaching the Gulf of Suez.

 

 

one view to embrace both the mainland and the Sinai

 

 

Sharm El Sheikh, southern tip of the Sinai. Lot of dust….

ferry flight, Europe-Dubai last week

 

It was a bit of a last minute call late May to replace a copilot on that same Twin Otter, just like last year. Weather in Europe was still awful so I didn’t really enjoy the lake of Constance possibilties, Switzerland side, while the plane was being readied for the 3 day flight. Anyway here are a few pictures over the 3 days.

 

St Gallen-Altenrhein airport is located in some stunning area, between the lake and the Alps. Not a busy airport but various planes come in like these 2.

 

We flew eastbound first to go Athens, again a longer trip than necessary, a flightplan due to Eurocontrol conspiracies? I don't know but we came close to Bratislava before finally taking a more south east heading. Here looking towards Austria.

Central Europe was again mostly cloudy this year for us. Pretty soon after we had taken off, we lost sight of ground and flew over a white sea of cloud with an occasional storm which gets boring after a while… the icing conditions we met were mild.

 

things got a bit better from Greece onwards, we stayed one night in the Athens airport Sofitel (!). I like companies that take care of their pilots….

 

Cairo looks like a giant slum… the limit between the green Nile delta and the desert looks artificially drawn.

Egypt was clear this year, finally! Leaving Cairo, the Nile on the right, a wet dark wet strip across the desert just before it spreads out.

 

the Canal of Suez flowing in the Gulf of Suez.

 

a bit of the Sinai where we stayed again for one night at the Hilton. Again some companies are really great….

 

then a huge dust cloud seemed to cover most of Saudi Arabia, we had a brief glimpse of those circular cultures in Saudi Arabia. I wonder how deep the farmershave to dig for the water table. How much did the water level drop over the years…

and things looked a bit better over the Persian Gulf but not that good in terms of visibility.

 

Dubai…nice weather so to speak, 38C but humid with an atmospheric veil. Not great for pictures and scenery….