RENK, South Sudan: Tens of thousands of exhausted people are heading home to the world’s youngest country as they flee a brutal conflict in neighboring Sudan.
There’s a bottleneck of men, women and children camping near the dusty border of Sudan and South Sudan and the international community and the government are worried about a prolonged conflict.
Fighting between Sudan’s military and a rival militia killed at least 863 civilians in Sudan before a seven-day cease-fire began Monday night. Many in South Sudan are concerned about what could happen if the fighting next door continues.
“After escaping danger there’s more violence,” said South Sudanese Alwel Ngok, sitting on the ground outside a church. “There’s no food, no shelter, we’re totally stranded, and I’m very tired and need to leave,” she said.
Ngok thought she’d be safe returning home after fleeing clashes in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, where she watched three of her relatives killed. She and her five children arrived in Renk, South Sudan, where people were sheltering on the ground, some sleeping with their luggage piled up near thin mats. Women prepared food in large cooking pots as teenagers roamed aimlessly. Days after Ngok and her family arrived, she said, a man was beaten to death with sticks in a fight that began with a dispute over water.
Years of fighting between government and opposition forces in South Sudan killed almost 400,000 people and displaced millions until a peace agreement was signed nearly five years ago. Enacting a solid peace has been sluggish: The country has yet to deploy a unified military and create a permanent constitution.
Large-scale clashes between the main parties have subsided, but there is still fighting in parts of the country.
South Sudan has billions in oil reserves that it moves to international markets through a pipeline that runs through Sudan in territories controlled by the warring parties. If that pipeline is damaged, South Sudan’s economy could collapse within months, said Ferenc David Marko, a researcher at the International Crisis Group.
However, the most immediate concern is the tens of thousands of South Sudanese who are returning with no idea of how they’ll get home to their towns and villages. Many are unable to afford the trip. Aid groups and the government are stretched for resources they can use to help.
Some 50,000 people have crossed into the border town of Renk, many sheltering in stick huts along the road and in government buildings throughout the city. Some wander aimlessly in the market, desperately asking foreigners how to get home. People are arriving faster than they can be taken to new locations.
The longer they stay, the greater the risk of fighting between communities, many with longstanding grievances stemming from the civil war. Many are frustrated because they don’t know what lies ahead.
The power struggle in South Sudan between President Salva Kiir, a Dinka, and Vice President Riek Machar, a Nuer, took on an ethnic dimension during the civil war. Communities in Renk said that the conflict that broke out over water in May and led to the killing of the man with sticks quickly became a wider dispute between the ethnic groups, forcing people to flee once again.
At first, the local government wanted to divide the South Sudanese returning through Renk, based on their place of origin. Aid groups, however, pushed back. Together with the government and community leaders, the aid groups are engaging in peace dialogues.
“We are worried (about more violence),” said Yohannes William, the chairman for the humanitarian arm of the government in Upper Nile state. “The services that (are) being provided here, they are limited. We have been told that this is a transit center, anyone who comes should be there two days or three days and then transit.”
“But now, unfortunately, due to the delayment of transportation, they have been there for more than two weeks, three weeks,” William said.
Situated at the northernmost tip of South Sudan, Renk is connected to other parts of the country by few roads. The main routes are flights or boat trips along the Nile, and many people can’t afford them.
The United Nations’ International Organization for Migration is trying to send the most vulnerable South Sudanese who have returned — some 8,000 people — home by boat, with the goal of transporting nearly 1,000 people daily along the Nile to the state capital of Malakal. However, the trips have just begun, and problems in coordination between aid groups and the government at the port this month delayed people from leaving, with children, babies and the sick camped by empty boats for days under the scorching sun.
Aid workers say it could take up to two months to decongest the city, which has nearly doubled in size. But Malakal already hosts some 44,000 displaced people in a United Nations protection camp, many still too afraid to leave for security reasons.
“The problem is ‘an out of the frying pan, into the fire’ conundrum, because we’re moving them to Malakal, and Malakal is itself congested,” Nicholas Haysom, the United Nations chief in South Sudan, told The Associated Press.
Some who have already returned to Malakal from Sudan say they’re unsure if there’s a home to go back to, having had no contact with their families during the civil war.
“I don’t know if my relatives are dead or alive,” said William Deng. The 33-year-old hasn’t been able to speak to his family in neighboring Jonglei state, which has little phone service, since returning in early May.
The government says that it has funding for 10 charter planes to fly people from Renk to parts of the country harder to reach by boat. But Renk’s tiny airport can’t support large planes, so each flight can only hold 80 people.
“The situation is dire … (South Sudan) is now being forced to receive additional refugees and returnees. As a result, the humanitarian needs in the country will continue to grow,” said Michael Dunford, regional director for East Africa for the World Food Program.
Even before this crisis, 70 percent of the population needed humanitarian assistance, and the World Food Program can’t meet their needs, he said.
Traders in Renk, who get the majority of their goods from Sudan, say they’re already feeling the economic pain, with prices spiking 70 percent.
“I used to send my family $100 a week. Now I send half that,” said Adam Abdalla Hassan.
The Sudanese shop owner supports his family in Sudan, but now is earning less because people don’t have enough money, he said.
Those who returned say they’ve received little information about where or how they’re supposed to get home, and worry they won’t make it in time before the rainy reason, which starts soon, floods roads and makes it harder to fly.
“How can we stay here under the rain with the kids?” said Ehlam Saad. Holding up her UN-issued wristband, the 42-year-old said she’s been living in Renk for nearly three weeks. She has no idea how she’ll get to the capital of South Sudan, Juba, where she and her family lived before the war. Her only choice now is to find a way home and reunite with her husband and son, she said.
“A home is a home. Even if there’s fighting, even if you move around the world, even if it’s the worst option, it’s home,” she said.
Thousands of exhausted South Sudanese head home, fleeing brutal conflict
https://arab.news/ryq4g
Thousands of exhausted South Sudanese head home, fleeing brutal conflict
- There’s a bottleneck of men, women and children camping near the dusty border of Sudan
- Fighting between Sudan’s military and a rival militia killed at least 863 civilians
How growing public support to disarm Hezbollah is forcing a reckoning in Lebanon
- Polling suggests broad public backing for Hezbollah disarmament, reflecting fatigue with perpetual war and instability
- Many supporters remain wary, fearing loss of protection amid Israeli strikes and doubts over Lebanese army’s abilities
DUBAI: Lebanon’s government recently instructed the army to prepare a plan to disarm all armed factions and restore the state’s monopoly on weapons. It was widely interpreted as a move to disarm Hezbollah.
However, despite international calls for Hezbollah to surrender what remains of its heavy arsenal, the move has triggered a political tit-for-tat that now threatens to plunge the country into a new civil war.
With Israeli airstrikes ongoing in the south and the US heaping on the pressure, President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam have attempted to build public consensus around a weakened Hezbollah laying down its arms.
According to a recent Gallup poll, which surveyed a random sample of 1,010 people from across the country, excluding Hezbollah strongholds in southern Beirut and other cities like Baalbek, the Lebanese public is largely in favor of the moves.
Some 79 percent of respondents told Gallup they were in favor of the exclusive right of the Lebanese state to maintain arms, compared to just 19 percent who were against.
Among Lebanese Shiites, who form the political base of Hezbollah, 69 percent said they were opposed to disarming non-state actors, compared to 29 percent who agreed — underlining the fragmented nature of Lebanese society and politics.
“The prolonged conflicts associated with Hezbollah’s growing influence in Lebanon and the broader region have left many Lebanese wary of further armed confrontations,” Dr. Mariam Farida, a lecturer and Middle East expert at Macquarie University, told Arab News.
“Nonetheless, despite the report indicating significant public support for Hezbollah to relinquish its arms, many Shiite residents remain hesitant.
“This support is rooted in a belief that Hezbollah’s arms serve as a necessary deterrent against external threats, particularly from Israel, and as a safeguard for their communities in the absence of a strong and capable Lebanese government.”
Since the November 2024 ceasefire, Israel has continued to bomb suspected Hezbollah positions across the country and to occupy five strategic hilltops in the south, despite its obligation to withdraw.
Farida said this was the main challenge with disarmament, which would require a confident Lebanese army to prove it was able to adequately defend Lebanon’s sovereignty.
Nevertheless, she believes growing public support for the government’s disarmament moves was born from an increasing “collective desire to strengthen government institutions.”
This support is likely fueled by the multi-faceted crisis facing the country, which the International Monetary Fund characterizes as a severe, “man‑made” depression caused by years of mismanagement, corruption, weak governance, and an unsustainable economic model.
It is a notion that was echoed by Dr. Karim Bitar, lecturer in Middle East studies at Sciences Po Paris and professor at Saint Joseph University of Beirut, who says there is a growing frustration at Hezbollah’s inability to deliver tangible results for the Lebanese people.
“I think there are those that say it’s high time that Hezbollah engages in some self-criticism,” Bitar told Arab news.
“Because it went to war with Israel, without having fought corruption in Lebanon, without having built a resilient, strong, productive economy, without being able to protect people in south Lebanon and provide them places to hide from the bombings.”
Moreover, Bitar said there were growing questions of the group’s commitment to Lebanon and its security due to its assertive role in conflicts across the region and its involvement in political assassinations and corruption at home.
“The fact that Hezbollah was penetrated by Israeli intelligence adds to the grievances against the group, even from those who were initially quite supportive,” he said.
“They did not understand why Hezbollah felt compelled to go fight in Syria alongside the regime of Bashar Assad. Why so many political assassinations took place in Lebanon. Why Hezbollah used its weapons against other Lebanese.”
Bitar said the group, which initially had near-unanimous support for its fight to end Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon, had over the years fallen victim to hubris, which had led to its downfall.
However, he acknowledged the important role that the group played in elevating Shiite communities, which had historically been disenfranchised.
Over the years, the group has played a significant social and civic role in Lebanon, particularly in underserved communities where state services are weak or absent.
Through its network of charities and social institutions, it runs hospitals, clinics, schools, and food assistance programs that provide healthcare, education, and basic support to thousands of families.
“The south and the Bekaa were impoverished and forgotten by central authorities, with the only exception of the Fuad Chehab presidency in the 1960s, who was the first and only president who tried to integrate these regions and offer some sort of support,” Bitar said.
“There was a very significant speech by (former Hezbollah leader) Hassan Nasrallah right after the 2006 war. He said, ‘We will never go back to the time when we were the shoe shiners,’ meaning Christian elites and Sunni elites would look down on Lebanese Shiites.”
Hezbollah has traditionally justified its need for weapons as part of a necessary “axis of resistance” to Israel, which defends Lebanon and supports the Palestinian cause.
However, many Lebanese are now critical of armed support for the Palestinian cause, with 10 percent of respondents telling Gallup they think their country should support Palestine through direct conflict with Israel, while 86 percent said it should not.
Bitar said this was due in part to the lack of results from the latest Israel-Hezbollah war, the destruction and displacement it wrought upon Lebanon, and to the increased internationalization of the Palestinian conflict. Many want to see their own country put first.
“Lebanon paid a very heavy price over the past decades,” Bitar said.
“Lebanon was a buffer state in international geopolitics, the country where all regional powers and international powers would settle their scores, and they realized that not only did it destroy Lebanon, but it did not in any significant way improve the lot of Palestinians.
“The battle (for Palestinians) also takes place on US campuses in Manhattan, at universities in Europe to win public opinion, but also by consolidating a Lebanese economy that would really build a state that would be capable of defending itself.”
Nevertheless, there are still many who see armed conflict with Israel as the only solution.
In recent days, Saudi, French, and American officials held talks with the Lebanese army in Paris aimed at advancing mechanisms that would allow for the disarmament of Hezbollah. It is a controversial move that is likely to spark political backlash regardless of public support.
Bitar said the Lebanese government must ensure it is able to sell the message of inclusivity and a country for all if the plan is to succeed. “There is a very thin line that should not be crossed,” he said.
“Shiites should have the impression that they will remain essential stakeholders in Lebanese politics and that if they give up their heavy arsenal, this would not mean that they will be relegated again and become second-class citizens like they were in the past.”
