Ben Wilhelmi

Attitudes in South Sudan

 

7th week in Juba… to put it briefly, I don’t envision any foreseeable future for normal life and tourism here.

It didn’t me take long to miss Tanzania where spending 15 years left a serious impression. Perhaps I have been spoilt with such a country to start with. The UN classifies South Sudan as a hard duty station. I don’t criticize this. My girlfriend is in Goma, RDC, we compare notes…not sure if there is a winner here.

My passion for aerial photography took a hit here. Even Belgium has more hills than South Sudan. I haven’t spotted any wildlife, I miss the salt lakes, the Indian Ocean and the various mountains, the volcanoes and craters. There is the Nile and stormy weather and refugee camps here as a meager gift…

People are quite a different breed too. Let’s put it on the 30 years of wars that must take a toll on people’s behaviours. The current humanitarian crisis and civil war are not going to heal anything. The various reports from agencies are just dreadful, now and for the next 9 months. What a pity, united to fight the evil north, the south is now reenacting a smaller civil war.

Cops, “security” people, anybody with a vague bit of authority, real or self allowed, soldiers…can be pretty corrupt and aggressive, overstepping each others’ “prerogatives”. It can lead to some serious confusion and venomous situations on airfields. Whereas I could tell a Tanzanian cop in the wrong to f…off, I’m a bit more careful here, whether with cops or soldiers. Many weapons are circulating, either on a well groomed soldier or on a guy you’d give a coin if he were to beg. Machete in Tanzania, AK 47 here.

The military thinks they can ask us any favor, books aircraft and cancels at the extreme last minute (when the plane is loaded and fueled, too bad for your next flight if there is now too much fuel on board), and still threatens to kill the manager who dared to seize 10% for cancellation fee if he didn’t fully refund the amount!

Another  general only threatened to revoke our business licenses if we didn’t cooperate on a flight.

Another wanted us to do military flying, that is to find rebels! The hell with the licenses we flatly refused, a UN helicopter has been shot down in August doing that. A valid license is half useless with a shot down aircraft. And I’m sure other pilots have also promised their Mom and girlfriend to be safe. No news since then…

As for the peace talks...well lots of talking for sure.

Now I even miss the notorious corrupt Tanzanian cops or administrations… who would have guessed.

But with a journalistic mind, I find things to look at, to observe. If things are not nice, they can be interesting.

South Sudan, some pictures

 

People were waiting for me, well for the cargo to be honest. Though I was honored with singing and dancing, a first for me.

 

Juba, 33 Celsius, and humid. The best clothing ever indeed.

 

A local 5 star hotel. Maybe it is better than it looks…

 

A booby trap market.

 

 

Tanzania was not the only country to be invaded by those cheap motorbikes. Also called here boda boda, due to the neighboring Kenyan influence. Kenyans and Ugandans help and invest a lot since the independence.

 

In Bor, once in a while there is a VIP flying. Since a horrible carnage, a month of blood baths and fighting happened a few months ago, body guards swamp the place.

South Sudan, nasty situations

 

My first example of ‘something is weird in this country’ was my colleague’s account of a violent incident that had just happened to him the month before my arrival. He had landed in a shithole called Rubkona, a village held by rebels while the airstrip is under the governmental troops’ watch. We have to avoid overflying the village by the way. Those morons have been shooting at aircraft! Since a UN helicopter has been shot somewhere else recently, we keep an eye or 2 open.

He was greeted by soldiers who asked then tried to force him to fly out 40 wounded soldiers, still dripping in blood, on the Caravan. This is a 13 seat aircraft, a few extras can be pushed in but 40 adults? He tried to reason them but to no avail, the situation got heated, he was threatened to be killed, he held his ground and was finally ‘only’ beaten up by the moronic soldiers, with the rifle butts! Unconscious for 2 hours, he then managed to fly back alone, and spent a few days resting after a visit at an hospital for his head injuries.

So the first time I went there, I was a bit cautious. The scene gets chaotic every time. The people are all poor, but they have cellphones and nice clothes, the chickens have died, the little son is sick, the old man has nobody to look after him(in African culture, yeah sure), the hut collapsed, the goats escaped, the wife ran away, the soldiers haven’t been paid (that one is often true though) and the list is long.

While we discussed market/bazaar style, some people try to get in the plane, to pry the door open from my hands, they talk and yell around me from every direction…quite exhausting in the scorching heat after a long flight.

The new one was that we had suddenly the obligation to take 2 government employees for free on each flight. The author of this caption was a big soldier. I can smell bullshit when I see it, which I didn’t fail to tell him. He got angry at me: a smaller guy not respecting his big size, his uniform in front of other people…he finally put his hand on his handgun, still on his belt, his men immediately came around with their Kalashnikovs.

I don’t know what I was thinking, I just got stroppy, me…, and I kept my best poker face, barely raising an eyebrow. I think I saw steam coming out of his nostrils. One smarter man than both of us came with the brilliant idea to call my boss, on the satellite phone, who agreed to let those 2 employees board for free (we discovered it was after more lies from Rambo).

2 employees…who became 7 because of their kids. Employees who looked like Maasai people.

Rambo had a victorious smile that I only wanted to wipe away so I made sure to clarify things. I hadn’t changed my mind while facing him, only the phone call did. His smile disappeared.

Flying back, I thought I hadn’t been that smart but I just can’t help. I can’t stand undue arrogance. It pushes a highly sensitive button. But that punk avoids me now, he goes and pesters other pilots for his dirty business. That’s a victory. I have been told twice since “Ah you again…” by his replacement cronies.

Stand to your ground.

South Sudan, a nasty situation

 

Boma West, in the middle of nowhere towards the Ethiopian border. I was happy to fly there, for the mountains that announce the Ethiopian landscapes. I had to fly a few soldiers, their weapons and their precious cargo. Beer. Only dozens of boxes of beer. I know the troop morale has to be kept high but…most seats had been removed for the booze.

The landing was fine, the beer offload through the large cargo door too. All the other doors were closed. The crowd, as many civilians as soldiers, seemed to behave, keeping some distance.

I had hardly jumped out of the airplane that the crowd started to rush like in panic. I got nearly crushed against the fuselage. People, mostly soldiers with AK 47 slung around their shoulders, were scrambling like on a military exercise to climb on board through that cargo door. The lower edge stands at one meter high. So the guys were really climbing using legs and hands, pushing each other, screaming, elbowing here and there. I saw one soldier using his boot to crush one competing hand against the metal. This is where I started to hate the word soldiers to describe those clowns.They have no discipline no idea of what it takes to be a soldier. But 'armed men in uniform' is a bit too long...

I managed to slip away, nothing I could do there. I was watching from a distance the plane getting full like an egg. When it was finally full, with 2 guys hanging outside, no way to even close the doors except by calling the Tokyo metro guys, a calm soldier, finally one, came and asked me quite naturally “so we’re good, you can go?”!!

I burst out laughing, I just couldn’t believe it and his feelings looked shattered. How many people in there? 50? The weight, the aircraft balance, each soldier with his loaded gun in…I could see a few reasons not to go.

It took a bit of explaining, surrounded by an angry crowd (the ones who didn’t manage to board I suppose), I got a punch in the neck(!), not sure why or who as when I turned around to retaliate, there was nobody close. But we agreed on the impossibility to take off as it was, we succeeded in removing most of them, only the strongest stayed in..and a woman! A tough breed that one amongst these savages!! It looked she had a swollen eye.

I had climbed myself on board to “help” these unruly and unconvinced passengers to get out. A bit of gym was good. F… I had barely managed to kick one out that another guy tried to jump on board, without thinking my fist went off, hitting him in the chest. Out of breath he fell back rolling in the dust.

Meanwhile other soldiers came with long sticks and started to whack indiscriminately in the pushing crowd, that move made room to throw people out. Luckily I got help. Funny how the soldiers were divided on this issue. The Good and the Bad. The Ugly must have been somewhere else.

I knew I had to accept some defeat at some point. 15 strong soldiers were going to be really hard to dislodge, I decided 2 wounded soldiers and that brave woman could stay on board. Only 3 seats, the floor for most. And the Kalashnikovs, that hadn’t been used finally. In the chaos I had forgot about them.

Trying to close that cargo door, I had to slam hard 2 hands with that very heavy door: 2 more guys trying to jump in while being whacked by the long sticks. Then I climbed on my seat, one guy held the ladder, another one tried again to sneak in behind me. More finger slapping with the pilot door while my foot kicked one’s face while I was starting the engine.

Man, that was some adrenaline flushing down the pipes. I was drenched. Though except that punch, I was never aimed at. Fun but not reasonable. We need some plan for next time. Cargo drop? Body guards? Land and stop on the other side of the strip, keep the engine running on feather, offload quickly and take off right away before the crazy crowd runs down?

The best part? Boma West has been a peaceful area for months now! There was no apparent reason to replay the 1975 US embassy situation in Saigon…(in one picture, there is indeed one guy punching somebody out in the freaked crowd trying to board a chopper)

Street photography, Juba, South Sudan

 

I’ve found many similarities with the Tanzanian streets where I have lived for 15 years.

 

A lady starts her business, a food stall,  in the morning, at the foot of an abandoned building.

 

South Sudanese men wear their suits the proper size, not 3 sizes too big.

 

Car accessories.

 

Those death traps have arrived en masse in this country too.

 

Some main streets in Juba and their attractive road businesses.

 

Ok to be honest a few roads are tarmacked. Here is a Japanese peace keeper vehicle.  The Japanese group here is for instance rebuilding the airport. But if need be they seem to have a defensive mission, providing they received a timely authorization from New York UN headquarters that is. In any case, like other nationalities of Blue Helmets I’ve seen, they don’t relax too much, weapons and other gear are never too far.  Well look at this vehicle, the alertness of the soldier on top…and that is just to cross Juba, quite peaceful nowadays.

Aerial pictures of a refugee camp, South Sudan

 

Flooded or not, it all depends on a few centimeters and luck.

 

All that green or sandy surface is water. Canoes would be convenient to visit the neighbors or go shopping.

 

The UN camp next door was better planned, there is hardly no sluggish water here, a better location makes all the difference.

 

In some camps, maybe all, the latrines have collapsed. Cholera cases have been reported. Even the camp in Juba is affected. Boots are to be sprayed when one leaves camp, for those who can…a lone tree is used for meetings, probably for men only.

 

Organization is to be seen here and there. A little garden, straw collected for roofing…small shops I heard. I’d like to visit one camp at some point. Well the word ‘visit’ has a weird feeling in this case.

 

The same picture has been cropped below to show that typical fresh water tank in blue. A foot bridge has been built to access it.

 

A main street in the green slime.

Aerial photography, South Sudan

 

The weather is just irregular. One day, perfect blue sky, the next, this.

 

On the Nile shoreline, a hamlet.

 

A flooded refugee camp. Bad luck, only the camp is flooded. Such a vast expanse of land and to choose that low bit…

 

 

 

Just after take off out of Juba, the Nile.

 

More of these little grassy islands. I’m on a mission to find out.

Aerial photography, South Sudan

 

After the wonderful Tanzanian landscapes, I feel I’ve left Heaven for Hell. Direct flight. Anyway I’m trying to have a look down there…

A flooded village. At first silly me, seeing the waters, I thought this was a succession of little bridges, but no, just a kind of a fence, probably for the field now flooded. Those rounded huts are here called "tukul".

 

Same kind of flooded village, same fence. Different colors for the floods.

 

 

A dyke surrounds this hamlet. The sandy color is water.

 

 

More floods on this flat country.

 

Farming doesn’t seem to be the major business in South Sudan, well for what I have seen so far. Here are some harvest traces.

A refugee camp, aerials, South Sudan

 

A refugee camp in Rubkona in the north west, IDP status, that is Internally Displaced People. 1,3 million in the country. 450,000 more refugees have left to neighboring countries. Mind blowing numbers…

I’ve shown this kind of picture before: I’m still puzzled by the fact that only this camp is badly flooded around.

 

Yesterday I overflew and took some details. Notice the little dykes around the tents.

 

A part of the main street…below a cropping of the same picture:

Those brown slabs are clean water reservoirs. What an irony that people have to get into dirty water to access the clean one. Towards the right side, these are kids playing in the water under the scorching sun.

 

More water tanks, different models.

 

I’m not too sure what this is. A watchtower monitored by peacekeepers? There are a few on the perimeter…

 

Toilets… wadding skills required. One other camp is reported with 1 latrine for 158 persons. The crisis level says 1 for 50… it doesn’t look too bad here, no queues to be seen.

Some pictures in South Sudan

 

A tourist(?) market, well NGO people fall in that category somewhat.

I’ve been warned, Sudanese people can be cagey about pictures, especially the thousands of men sitting and doing nothing, well apparently. They are called security men. If true they made a special effort to look poor and craggy. So they’d be happy to jump on an unsuspecting photographer under the pretense of security. Secuwhat? The place is just a big dump behind rebuilt…but any way, any excuse to make some money is good enough.  So street photography is not as easy as in Tanzania…

 

I can see many similarities though.

 

I thought I had been spotted by Mr Darkglasses here but no action followed.

“Keep Juba clean”, yes please, the place is the dirtiest town I have seen so far.

 

I suppose one has to cope with the hurdles of a country being under reconstruction. Not everybody can afford a modern steel and glass office .

 

Cool name for a bank? Well is there any elephant in this country?

 

Happy ladies in Agok.

 

Unfazed kids: my gesture to shoo them away from the airstrip were ignored. They were still there when I took off…

some flying tools, South Sudan

 

That speck on the left is my aircraft, a Caravan 208 containing 13 passengers or a good ton of cargo. Imagine what this monster of an helicopter can carry! Yes, a Caravan for instance. This is a Mi 26.

 

An Antonov 12, eco friendly in appearance….

 

2 views of the Ilyushin 76. Ex military aircraft. Seen from close, the gunner posts and the bomb master glass nose are visible.

 

A Hawker Siddeley 748.

 

2 legends: above the Hercules C 130. Below the Boeing 707. I still have to go and sniff around that one!

Especially the small tail on the left, Mig 19?

 

Antonov 26. Notice the propeller tips creating vapor vortices in the humid morning.

I brought my new 2nd hand Leica M8 here, and to avoid any jealousy between girls, I brought my old M6 (film camera). Fancy team.

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.

A flight in South Sudan

 

The place is called Rubkona. First we had been told to avoid overflying the village as some skirmishes had been spotted earlier in the day. Supposedly the rebels were in town and the governmental troops at the airfield.

On final, one can’t help but notice that refugee camp, which was quite flooded in that sandy colored water. Bad karma or what? These people are being terrorised, robbed, looted, abused by both camps and when finally they find some kind of shelter, the elements come in force.

Yes I can say the troops are around the airstrip but I’d say the rebels and them have passed a truce or something not to fight in the hottest moments of the day because the soldiers were really really relaxed. I even spotted one in his underwear doing his laundry! I wish I could have brought a picture because I have a feeling that a guy in boxers, Ray Bans, a red beret and the AK 47 against the basin won’t happen everyday.

 

Seeing these torched cars I initially thought that indeed there had been some fighting. But in this case an airplane crashed on landing and hit these jeeps.

Here is a bit of the aircraft mangled with the car wrecks.

 

The remains of the HS 748.

 

The UN peacekeepers, from Mongolia, took the job more seriously. All geared up and armed.

This Blue dude never dropped his binoculars in the 10 min I was snapping around.

 

 

A UN soldier keeps watch around the Mi 8.

 

Here is another picture of the flooded refugee camp. After take off it hit me that the whole area is dead flat like a pan. And out of all the places the engineers or city planners could have chosen, they selected the lowest part so that with the first rains, this hollow point would get hit. And apparently nothing else around, notice how the perimeter is clearly holding the water. I’d like to hear the story behind this, hear what those planners have to say for their defense.

A flight in South Sudan

 

 

Out of Juba to a bled called Agok near Darfur. I had to deliver 26 of those beds. Another plane was to deliver the mattresses.

 

The Nile looks like a difficult river to navigate, even impossible at some spots I’d say. But after seeing all these barges I might have to revise my opinion.

 

I haven’t seen many farm fields in South Sudan so far. Here are some alongside the Nile outside Juba.

 

After 2 hours over a monotonous flat and vast green plain, here is Agok, still a bit flooded.

These huts were made of plastic tarpaulins, reeds and various salvaged materials. The floods seem receding. Finally I could perform a low pass, Tanzanian style, to chase off animals and kids.

 

Those huts have lovely multilayered roofs.

 

I got a few surprises:  these women started to sing and dance in my honor for bringing beds(?). Not food not medicine but beds…

 

And the filmmaker here interviewed me, asking me how I felt to help out  a whole village, why did I do this, where did I come from, she thanked me at every sentence and I felt like Madonna landing in Malawi.

Then an old man was brought on the scene, to be flown to Juba. Things went a bit sour because I wouldn’t fly him for free. 15 people started to yell and get excited around me like in an oriental bazaar. The usual excuses and plights came out: he is poor, has no friends, no family, he is sick, his goats have died etc. One would wonder how did he survive so long out there…

I smiled and said this circus reminded me of Tanzania. What had I said! The journalist felt insulted funny enough and claimed loudly this was not Tanzania. I apologized and said she was right, that Tanzanians were at least quiet and polite in the same situation, and I started to board the plane. Suddenly little banknotes came out of at least 10 pockets. For a guy who was alone and poor 5 minutes before, he suddenly made many friends…and I was then called  Belgica Man…no more Dear Ben, God Bless you etc!

Where did she pick Belgica? I had said Belgium.

South Sudan, random pictures

 

Juba International airport, my new base. A Caravan is dwarfed by the huge Ilyushin 76s.

 

A nicely decorated airfield, Rubkona. A bigger plane crashed on landing and rammed into these jeeps. I initially thought they had been blown up in fighting. An easy mistake to do since there were some skirmishes in the village the very morning I landed there.

 

The legendary Mi 8 Russian helicopter, a workhorse. Notice the UN peacekeepers.

 

Juba suburb.

 

Another famous craft, the Ilyushin 76, or Il 76. At least 7 of them are based in Juba, packing up the apron.

 

The Nile in Juba.

 

After the flood.

 

The famous Dinka cows with huge horns. I need to see them from close and bring a better picture.

Arrival in South Sudan

 

So the company I fly for in Arusha has sent the Caravan 208 in Juba, the capital of South Sudan. I flew from Mwanza to Juba over Uganda. Did you know the Nile has different names over its course? Blue or white, that’s famous, but Victoria Nile, Albert Nile, Aswa…? I learnt something anyway. I noticed all of this on the 20 year old maps (the latest version! I’m not sloppy).

20 years of war, 3 years only since independence and currently the worst humanitarian crisis according to the UN. The rebuilding of this new country is in full swing nevertheless. So mishaps and various peculiarities are to be expected.

Like a twisted visa printer (100$ for a one month visa)

 

Like a soldier with flipflops, thought the rest of his fatigue was crisp.

 

Like a serious need in marketing for these 2 companies.

I know children who would have done a better painted job.

 

Many offices have no choices but to occupy these modified containers. Fine but the dirty surroundings…? My new company has a neat place though.