Memoirs of an African Refugee: Civil War in Dadaab (Ifo) Refugee Camp 1997 (part 2)
6 min readBy David Mayen Ayarbior, Juba, South Sudan
June 21, 2016 (SSB) — In the last narration on our “civil war” in Ifo 1997 refugee camp I thought that we had suffered from what psychologists termed as ‘frustration-aggression syndrome.’ Considering what we had gone through for parts of 95 and the entire 1996 in terms of denial by UNHCR to give us refugee status, coupled with hunger, insecurity and virtual detention in a hostile environment, the fighting among South Sudanese far away from home in a refugee camp just proved that syndrome to be true. Where we were supposed to be so close (in fact we had become so close before the war) we started a senseless ethnic conflict.
Because of an unfounded rumor that the overall Chairman in Sudan 4 (Equatoria) was conspiring with “JVA” to resettle his own family, the three Sudans (2, 3, and 4 – Upper Nile, Bahar Algazal, and Equatoria respectively) had prepared for war, except for Sudan 1 (Anyuak). Sudan 1 was almost a foreign community. They spoke Amharic and associated exclusively with the Ethiopian community. There was a strong rumor that they were Ethiopian Anyuak who claimed to be South Sudanese in order to be resettled in U.S.A., Canada or Australia.
As an anecdote, on the abbreviation above, I still don’t know what JVA stood for except that it was the organization which was meant to resettle us. Every time there were rumors that JVA was coming our hopes were given a boost. Sometimes when we were really down, someone would say that he/she was in Dadaab (5 miles away) and he/she is sure that JVA was there (in town!) and forms were being prepared. That was a morale booster there, until we heard that they had left for Nairobi.
On the D-day it was pitch-dark and the heavens poured some showers as an omen for what was about to transpire. For me, I had a premonition that it was the ‘D-day’. Well, not really so much a premonition since I had close friends in Sudan 2 (where we played dominos, cards, and chess) who might have said something that could be translated into a premonition. I had good friends in Sudan 4 too with home we came from Cairo. And as arguably the best footballer and chess player in the camp, I had friends in all the three Sudans and beyond, including many admirers in the Ethiopian and Ugandan community. Having been a professional premier league footballer in Northern Sudan some eight years earlier, dribbling refugees was for me like drinking tea. Even the infamous Alice Lakwena (Jospeh Kony’s aunt) who was there in Ifo had told me that she remembered some young men talking about the South Sudanese’ football skills.
Before the war, football had bonded us as South Sudanese youth above our narrow tribal identities. We had found consolation in ‘beating’ Ethiopians, Somalis, Ugandans, and Congolese. We used to say, even if they ‘ate more food,’ we were still the best team. Our “national team” was made up of youth from the three camps (Bahar Algazal, Upper Nile and Equatoria). We had found something to keep us alive amidst hardship. For me, that collective status of fame I and some players from the three communities enjoyed made the war even harder to stomach. Yet we did not train for a while now, night had come so quickly and it was now dawn, the ominous dawn of the attack.
At around 5 am, we heard cracks on our fence on the Eastern side. It was Sudan 4. They are coming through our fence even if we told them they should not use “our territory” to launch that attack. I was on a late night shift with a few others and we had to warn everyone that some parts of our joint fence with Sudan 2 were being dismantled. It was too dark to see the numbers on the other side. And when they successfully got through, it was either we fought a war that was not ours or let them try to break through the other fence too, which was the one we jointly shared with Sudan 4. For some logical reason, we stood back and watched them run across our territory before setting the other fence on fire as a couple of women led with war songs while jumping left –right up-and-down like mad women. The “civil war” we dreaded had now begun.
The youth of Sudan 4, who were ready for that attack, tried to stop the “invaders” from entering their camp and committing what would be a massacre. The lighting fence made the scene surreal like a bad dream from which I thought I would wake up. Up until then I had never witnessed such fighting or tension, except during the death of a certain Anya Nya 1 general called Abur Matwong in the mid-seventies. He was our neighbor and my father’s acquaintance in Wau. As a young boy I remember soldiers driving very fast as tension and fear was everywhere in the air. I
In order to prevent an invasion of their camp, the youth in Sudan 4 started shooting Sudan 2 warriors with arrows. It seemed that they had made more than enough in preparation for that day. The warriors of Sudan 2 were disadvantaged at that stage because they could not lose their spears by throwing them over the fence. The fire power from Sudan 4 youth proved a potent deterrent and it seemed that only a few from Sudan 2 were putting helmets (saucepans) on their heads. A few got injuries along the stretch of the fence, while most run back and forth as they sang battle songs.
Somewhere at one weak spot, some warriors from Sudan 2 managed to break Sudan 4’s defenses and found themselves on the other side of the fence. Since the space was narrow to take everybody, the few who got into Sudan 4 were quickly repulsed with sticks and arrows. But that proved to be the moment when the entire camp held its breath for the next one month or so. As the sun started to rise, the retreating warriors from Sudan 2 had lost a member. He was said to be a teen ager. The rising sun revealed his body lying just on our joint thorn-tree fence. He was dead.
Mayen Ayarbior has a Bachelor Degree in Economics and Political Science from Kampala International University (Uganda), Masters in International Security from JKSIS-University of Denver (USA), and Bachelor of Laws (LLB) from the University of London. He is the author of “House of War (Civil War and State Failure in Africa) 2013” and currently the Press Secretary/ Spokesperson in the Office of South Sudan’s Vice President, H.E. James Wani Igga. You can reach him via his email address: mayen.ayarbior@gmail.com.
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