by Ger Duany
Gatdor slowly walked toward me, then ordered me to do a standing front tuck. Which I did—quite well, I might add.
It was around this time that my father started sneaking in and visiting us for short spells when he wasn’t fighting for the SPLA. Dad’s spies seemed to suggest Anya Anya II spies were few and far between in camp, so it was somewhat safer for him to be around. With Dad in the house, it felt like one hero had gone but a new one had returned to take his place. If only all our family could be together again under one roof. If I’d had a thousand birthdays, it would have been my one and only wish.
A strange occurrence became commonplace in the camp: every evening there would be wailing from one home or another, news having gotten back from the front line that a family member—a son, father, or uncle—had died from enemy fire.
My schoolmate Moses’s father, Captain Bikhan Deng, was a senior SPLA soldier. One day Moses told me that his dad was back from fighting on the front line, and I accompanied Moses home after school. I couldn’t think about decorum or manners and blurted out my questions.
ME: How was the fighting? Is Oder okay? My brother?
CAPTAIN DENG: It is nice to meet you, young man. And everything is great at the front line. We fight like the fate of the world rests on our shoulders. Your brother too. You should be proud.
However, the following day, Captain Deng came over to my family’s home. He found my father and mother and me and asked us to move closer. I instantly felt something was wrong. He offered no formalities.
CAPTAIN DENG: I am sorry to be the one to have to tell you this, but your son, your brother Oder has been shot dead by soldiers from the north.
When we heard this coldly delivered news, voices from inside our home rose up in that familiar melancholic chorus that had quickly supplanted the chirping of insects as the soundtrack of the evening. Noises escaped my mum’s and my lips that none of us had ever before emitted, coming from wells inside that none of us had ever before tapped. They reminded me of the vivid screams I’d heard as a small boy that are implanted in my brain of a lion behind our hut defending itself against an attack by ten to fifteen hyenas. My father, shocked, sat still, neither moving nor blinking. We had cried tears of joy in that same spot when Oder had come back. Now we were crying because Oder was dead, killed in the battle of Nasir.
DAD: Everyone, stop crying now. You are giving me a headache.
Father exited the house after Captain Deng, leaving my mother and me to grieve with each other.
I was inconsolable and couldn’t sleep that night. I looked outside and saw my father seated alone in the dark. He was hunched over, his big frame looking almost like a pile of sticks in the moonlight, his shoulders heaving. He was crying softly. This began the first and only period of time I ever saw him cry. I quietly observed him cry at night for several nights. Oder’s death was easily one of the biggest blows to my family, since everyone was fond of him. And the way it went down. From Captain Deng telling me everything was okay, then coming the following day to tell my family of Oder’s death, to my father’s show of strength in public and weeping in private, it became clear to me that the SPLA wanted to keep deaths hidden. For acknowledging them in the open would yield a drastic drop in anyone’s enthusiasm for this—or any—war.
RUMORS ABOUNDED WITHIN THE SPLA that we needed to go back to Sudan—the situation in Ethiopia was becoming untenable. We chalked it up to hyperbole and rumor. Then in 1991, when I was about thirteen years old, an Ethiopian jet fighter opened fire on Itang, forcing hundreds of thousands of us to flee for our lives. Ethiopia’s Mengistu Haile Mariam had been deposed by rebel forces who, in league with our enemy, northern Sudan, wanted all southern Sudanese refugees out of Ethiopian territory.
We were now sandwiched between two wars—the first one among the Ethiopians, who now sought to eject us from their country, and the second one between the SPLA and the government in Khartoum.
I was around the UN food-rationing area when the attacks started. It was the rainy season and the Nile was overflowing. I ran to my stepmother Elizabeth’s house. She had already fled. I ran to my mother’s house. She too had fled. My family had fled toward the forest. I was alone, stranded.
Everyone with strength ran toward one of two places, the UN storage facility or the SPLA armory within the camp. The UN facility had food supplies, while the SPLA armory had guns and bullets. I ran toward the armory, where I witnessed indiscriminate killing as people fought over guns. One person would go into the armory and come out with four guns. Someone else, wielding a gun, would see them.
GUN WIELDER: You have four guns. Give me two!
LOOTER: Get out of my way. I got here first!
And now a gunfight would ensue. It was unbelievable to see those under siege fight among themselves. This just went to show how valuable guns were to my people at the time.
Seeing this, I decided I wouldn’t take a gun from the armory, because if someone saw a kid with a gun, they would certainly have taken it away from me. Instead, I decided to grab a bag of bullets, which I intended to trade for food along the way. I knew there would be an excess of guns but a shortage of bullets. Luck was on my side because the bag of bullets I picked was for the M16, rare and expensive. AK-47 bullets were affordable and more readily available.
I came across a stray donkey wandering around, its owner having fled. This was a relief because I couldn’t have managed to carry the heavy bag of bullets a long distance. I put the bag on the donkey and started walking toward the health facility. When I got there, I found a group of gunmen ransacking the place, throwing patients off beds and stealing the mattresses. The storage room for medicine was also ransacked and mostly emptied. Given all this destruction and chaos, I realized we might never return to Itang.
What surprised me was that amid the violence and chaos of that moment, I thought of nothing else but school. I was heartbroken, knowing that the only chance I had gotten of receiving an education was now being blown by the fighting. As I walked through the melee at the hospital, looking like an innocent bystander, I picked up an old, muddied magazine from the floor. I perused it and was visually struck by what I later learned was a map of Africa. I ripped out that particular page and put it in my pocket and proceeded to take my own little share of the medicine from the floor of the plundered storage room.
When I emerged back into the fray, I found my stray donkey, with my bullets still on it, and got moving toward Sudan. I didn’t necessarily know the direction; all I had to do was follow the mass of people. As we moved, there were incidents of people violently snatching things from each other. The operating rule seemed to be that any possession was a valuable possession in wartime. This made me disguise myself further as a harmless child, not wanting to attract attention and have my bullets and medicine taken away. Walking the donkey—which was unwise, given that we were all trying to get away as fast as possible—provided me with further cover, making me appear confused.
I kept looking for my brothers and pregnant mother as I walked along. When night came, no one seemed to be sleeping. There was gunfire all around. Guns being a hot commodity, everyone with a firearm was a target. If you had a gun, someone else wanted it. People even preyed upon SPLA soldiers because they were no longer the only ones who were armed. Others were shooting at imaginary enemies. I got tired and passed out in the middle of nowhere. The elderly and sick had been left behind in Itang. This was the most chaotic war I had ever seen.
I was completely terrified, thinking of the journey ahead of me to get back to war-torn Sudan. And during the night, I thought the most about my pregnant mother. It was wet and cold, and I couldn’t imagine her facing such harsh weather in her condition. I thought I had become a man, an adult, worrying about others, though I was hardly in my teens. I was hoping that my mother had somehow reconnected with Chuol and Duany, who before this attack had returned to Itang from their SPLA training. In
that case, she would be fine, since my older brothers could fend for her and protect her no matter how difficult things got. And, boy, had Oder been alive…
Throughout the days, I kept the image of my mother in my mind’s eye and she kept me company, her high cheekbones rising even higher as she smiled at me. Under my breath I repeated the stories she used to tell me—about how the zebra got its stripes or the dog lost its voice. I missed her ability to make sense of everything.
The group of people I was moving with finally settled at a place called Makoat. It was a raised dry area, surrounded by a swampy area, on the bank of the Nile. I thought I would find my mother there, since a group had already arrived. With a friendly Nuer family, I traded some of my bullets and pills for food, which kept me alive for a few days. After spending a week in Makoat wandering around like a madman looking for my family, I bumped into my auntie Nyantek, her son Wunbil Koak Duany, and her partner, Mr. Guok Ruach. They had just arrived from a nearby locale called Kiirinbor. Auntie used to make fun of Guok, insisting he was her “partner in crime,” because in Nuer culture there’s no such thing as a widow having a “boyfriend.”
They told me my mother and brothers had taken refuge at Kiirinbor, and were frantic, not knowing my whereabouts, desperately looking for me.
UNCLE GUOK: You, Wunbil, will take Ger to rejoin his family in Kiirinbor.
WUNBIL: Fine. But he will have to leave that stupid donkey or it will slow us down.
As much as I hated to, I left my donkey, bullets, and medicine in Makoat, and the two of us made our way to Kiirinbor.
When we arrived, we found my mother lying under a tree, where she had recently given birth to Gok, who was wrapped in the few items of clothing she had brought along. My mother, a bit frail, pulled me close to touch my head, as if that was the spot to check on my health. Then she held me in a tight embrace.
MUM: You had us worried, Ger. But I am happy you made it. Meet your little brother.
Gok, who would grow up to have most of my features, just lay there, comfortable in the little castle my mother had built him of twigs stuck in the ground and draped with blankets to protect him from the sun and wind. I looked at his tender hands, wanting to play with him. Here was one more person I was now responsible for, since I could no longer pass for a child.
MUM: Ger, get yourself some rest. You must be tired.
WITH MY MOTHER WERE MY little sister Nyakuar, the twins Both and Nyandit, and my older brothers Chuol and Duany, who, along with some of their SPLA friends like Stephen Malual, had a mini army of guns among them to keep the family secure. My uncles, aunties, and cousins were all under their guard. Chuol had been trained as a tank driver and had three guns: an AK-47 and an M16, plus a PT92 pistol that he kept strapped around his waist at all times.
I was overjoyed to be reunited with the twins, Nyandit especially. We all packed our few belongings the following day to head back to Makoat. I asked if I could be the one to carry the twins on our journey.
Unfortunately, once we arrived, we found out there was no food there. Due to the relentless hunger, two of my friends, Thon and Gony, decided to get creative one night. We had been starving the whole day, and Gony, who was older than Thon and me, had spotted a family with goats and came up with the idea of stealing one. At first I didn’t agree, but they weren’t relenting. We didn’t mention this to Chuol or Duany. So, at nightfall, Gony and Thon crept out of the sleeping area and pulled me outside to embark on our mission, carrying a blunt knife with us.
We got to the area where the goats were sleeping and chose the one we wanted to slaughter. The moment we nabbed it, the rest scattered in different directions, screaming for their lives. I grabbed the goat’s back legs as Gony and Thon grabbed its front. Gony, the strongest among us, grabbed its mouth and nose and started cutting its throat with the blunt knife. The goat was kicking and shoving, trying to make all kinds of noise, and in no time its owner was wide-awake. And wielding a gun.
He burst out into the open, and the moment I saw him, I let go of the goat and sprinted into the night, leaving Thon and Gony behind. I hid in the bushes just far enough away to be able to witness what was about to happen, in case the man harmed Thon and Gony. I heard him shouting in Nuer.
GOAT OWNER: If you try to run, I will shoot. You have killed my goat. I will kill you today.
Thon and Gony were frozen with fear.
GOAT OWNER: Where are you from?
THON: We are Nuer. We just came from Itang. We are here with our families.
GOAT OWNER: Where are your families? Where are your possessions? How many were you?
THON: We were three.
When I heard this, I started running.
I got back to where my family was and sneaked into my sleeping place. Within no time, Thon, Gony, and the goat’s owner arrived. Thon and Gony came to wake me up, and I pretended I was dead asleep. My brothers Chuol and Duany and their SPLA friends heard the commotion and reached for their guns.
DUANY: What is going on here?!
By this time, the goat’s owner, who had brought the half-slaughtered goat with him, was pointing his gun at us.
GOAT OWNER: I will shoot everyone here!
Stephen started shouting, pointing his gun at the goat’s owner.
STEPHEN: This is nonsense. No one can come here and threaten us. If this is the day we die, then let us all die.
This was going to get ugly.
GOAT OWNER: These kids were stealing my goat. They have slaughtered it.
CHUOL: Ger, did you do it? Tell us now. Did you steal the goat?
Before I could reply, the rest of the group was joining Stephen, guns trained at the goat’s owner. I didn’t wait to see what would happen next.
ME: Everyone, please wait a minute. Yes, we slaughtered the man’s goat.
I was trying to save the situation. I told my brothers to hold their horses. I would take responsibility.
CHUOL: What do you mean, you will take responsibility?
ME: I will pay the man.
Everyone thought I was crazy, saying I would settle the matter with the goat’s owner, knowing I didn’t have the means to do so. But they were mistaken. I had the bag of bullets hidden away.
CHUOL: How much do you want from us?
GOAT OWNER: I want another goat. The size of the one they have slaughtered.
ME: I can give you a hundred bullets.
This caught everyone by surprise. We lit a huge bonfire so we could see outside, and I sneaked away to get the bag of bullets from my hiding place. I spread my blanket on the ground and started counting the bullets. No one wanted to eat the goat anymore, so the man took the bullets and the goat.
My actions had just exposed the fact that my family had a lot of guns, so we resolved to leave Makoat. It was no longer safe. An attack on the family, whether by the goat owner or anyone else, was imminent.
NOW, IN 1991, THERE WERE two dominant SPLA factions, each led by a strongman representing one of the two largest ethnic groups in southern Sudan. Dr. John Garang, a Dinka, ran one faction, while Dr. Riek Machar, a Nuer, headed the splinter group. They had many differences—including personal ambition and temperament—but their ideological divide was what eventually broke the camel’s back. Dr. Garang and his brigade believed in the idea of a New Sudan, where Muslims and Christians would live side by side in peaceful coexistence. Dr. Machar, taking the Anya Anya II separatist route, championed a split of the predominantly Christian south from the predominantly Arab north. Funnily enough, their visions were more or less the same: more independence for the south, and an end of domination by the north.
This fluid landscape of the civil war meant that not only were the northern Sudanese, based in Khartoum, bombing our region in the south, but the SPLA’s two factions were now going at each other. Anyone who resisted the will of either faction became an automatic target. Every sou
thern Sudanese was now at war: each against the other, and all of them against Khartoum.
We had a family meeting before leaving Makoat because, on top of war everywhere, there was also a dangerous flood!
MUM: To ensure all of us have enough food to survive on, we will split up. I and the smallest children, including Ger and Duany, will head toward Nasir. I am told there is relief food there from humanitarian agencies.
CHUOL: And I and the rest of us will head to Diik to join my father and Nyaluak Guech.
Our family would never be whole again.
Nasir wasn’t the haven we had hoped it would be. A huge population had moved back from Itang, and there was no way of sustaining the numbers. Because of the food shortage in Nasir, Duany and I decided to leave our mother with our little siblings and head to a village called Diik within West Akobo (otherwise known as Waat Town) to join our father. Once there, I shared the scant food available with him and Nyaluak, while Duany stayed with Uncle Reat’s family. Uncle Reat never left Diik Village in Waat Town Sudan, no matter how bad the fighting got. He always stayed behind, working the land and taking care of the one place we would all come back to from wherever we would wander across the world. He remained an enduring feature of the place we called home.
A group of men from around our home had been part of Dr. Machar’s SPLA faction, and they had just returned from a raid in the Bor area, where a lot of killing, looting, and destruction of property had taken place. One of my father’s friends had brought back a huge herd of cattle, and for a time, it seemed like there was enough meat to go around the entire village. The men back from the front line brought tales of the differences between Dr. Machar and Dr. Garang, and my father, who had fought alongside Dr. Garang for many years, now seemed to be siding with his tribesman, Dr. Machar! The ethnic divide was growing wider within the SPLA.