Walking the Nile

by Levison Wood

  Outside Juba, we’d enlisted the services of a young Ugandan man named Siraje, to help ferry our packs further north. For a week, we walked north through the Central Equatorial State, through tiny villages where food was scarce and where the locals, desperate since December, stared at us warily. Harbouring a foreigner, here, had seen more than one person murdered when the rebels last swarmed through, and every few kilometres the road was blocked by police barricades and army checkpoints. Very quickly, I was glad for the two Dinka accompanying me north: at every village, they somehow charmed the local chiefs into allowing us the use of an empty schoolroom or police station for a camp; at every roadblock, they regaled the security officials with tales of my derring-do – explaining to the commanders how I’d been walking for five years through a hundred different countries. My voyage was growing in the telling – and, by the time we had crossed into Lakes State, it turned out I had walked through Liberia, Senegal and Ghana, spending a million dollars along the way. With Ariike and his comrade John at my side, I didn’t have my paperwork checked once.

  The further north we pushed, the more visible the signs of war. Some nights, we heard short volleys of gunfire, somewhere in the indeterminate distance. Once, a blistering quake seemed to tear open the sky, only for silence to quickly resume. But clearer yet were the convoys that ploughed the same roads. On the main roads, the Red Cross were in action, ferrying supplies further north; sometimes they moved alone, and other times alongside UN trucks, peacekeepers bound for the centre of the conflict. There was a UN compound in Bor that was still staffed; perhaps that was where these soldiers were heading. Along the way, we scavenged whatever news we could. The rebels, we were told, had just attacked an oil refinery in Unity State, directly north of Lakes State itself, and still held the key town of Ayod, on the Nile’s east bank. The main road between Bor and Malakal was still closed – and, more than anything else, this gave me pause for thought. I had meant Malakal to be a key staging post on my journey to the Sudanese border; I was going to have to rethink those plans.

  The town of Minkaman sits on the border between Lakes State and Jonglei State, with only twenty miles of entangled papyrus swamp separating it from Bor. Here, the Nile forms the border between the states, plunging into the brown vastness of the Sudd. From a distance, it was clear that Minkaman had been transformed. The Red Cross trucks we had seen ploughing the Juba–Bor highway had been bound for here, because Minkaman was no longer the small fishing settlement it had once been; now it was a sprawling expanse of white-plastic sheeting, tents, homes built around cars, and open-air campsites. What had once been a small fishing village had become home to more than 80,000 displaced people. Some of them had come from Bor itself, but the vast majority had come from the further reaches of Jonglei State. Fleeing the rebels – who still controlled great swathes of the state – the refugees had found, in Minkaman, a place to survive.

  The camp was dominated by a succession of walled, barbed-wire enclosures, the base of operations for each of the NGOs who had come here. Flags were flying, declaring not nationalities but charitable organisations. Every tree along the riverbank had become the home to a family. Children still scampered in the shade beneath those trees, while the branches suspended pans, cooking utensils, mosquito nets and all the other household possessions with which the refugees had escaped. Drums were beating, sounding out the gathering of new committees or makeshift churches, the kind of institutions a camp like this needs to keep itself from sliding into anarchy. In many ways, Minkaman was a miracle, a city sprung up from nothing, in a matter of months.

  Down at the port, I chartered a motor boat that would take me out onto the swamp. It was the only way I could make the crossing to Bor and find out if there truly was a way forward. At the small dockside, I bid my SPLA stalwarts goodbye, and climbed into the boat. Siraje, too afraid to return to Juba alone, clambered in afterwards, helping to haul aboard the packs. Soon we were assailed by refugees hoping for a free ride – some citizens of Bor eager to get back and rescue more of their possessions, some traders working the water between here and the city, others soldiers returning to base in town. We took as many as we could, only driving them away when the boat could take no more.

  As we began the slow navigation through the papyrus channels, a single droplet of rain landed on my head.

  I looked back at the white-plastic sheets suspended from trees, at the tents and open-air campsites where people were living. ‘What will happen to all the refugees when the rains really come?’ I asked.

  The man at the tiller only shook his head; he did not want to imagine the answer.

  Some hours later, Bor loomed above our little vessel. The journey had been spectacular. Cutting through the wind, we had soared across miles of Sudd, through tangled fields of papyrus and reed. Sometimes the channels were only two metres wide; this was a landscape only a true local could properly understand. Under the boatman’s direction, we weaved north and east, driving legions of storks before us. Sometimes we rounded tiny islands where more refugees camped – internationally displaced persons (IDPs) who hadn’t made it to the greater camp at Minkaman but still preferred the solitude and relative sanctuary of the swamp. At least here, there were plentiful fish to catch, and the threat of sudden violence was kept at bay by the miles of entangled papyrus. This, I thought, was as good a place as any to wait out a war.

  At my side, a young Dinka soldier clung to the edge of the boat. Garang was twenty-seven years old, returning from Minkaman to join his unit in the city. Already a soldier for thirteen years, he had joined the SPLA as a child to fight against the Arabs, and had since risen through the ranks to become a sergeant major. Now, he told me, he was only a part-time fighter, taking up his gun only when it was needed. ‘I fought with the Dinka Youth when the Nuer rebels came to take Bor,’ he said. ‘The city’s changed hands four times now, but it’s back under government control at last.’

  ‘Bor belongs to the Dinka then?’

  ‘It’s more complicated than that. Some of the rebels want to think of it as just government Dinkas fighting Nuer rebels, but . . . I don’t hate the Nuer. In fact, my girlfriend’s one. But I do believe in government, and I do believe in unity. The rebels need to understand that we’re all one nation. And the only way to make them understand is to defeat them here.’

  The port in Bor was ramshackle, but somehow it buzzed with activity, stevedores and fishermen pursuing their daily business as if this was not the epicentre of a war. Among them, a rabble of different soldiers moved back and forth. Siraje and I had not left the docks behind by the time we knew we had crossed the front-line.

  Soldiers, policemen and hundreds of armed civilians flooded the muddy streets. We walked on, barely speaking a word. My only idea was that, once here, I could find some soldiers to accompany me northwards, convince them to hand me over to the rebels, and then pay them to shepherd me through the rebel-controlled territories until, eventually, I reached Sudan. There would be no shortage of soldiers to ask, but suddenly I doubted whether any would agree.

  The streets leading into the heart of the city had been razed. Blown-up tanks rusted at the sides of the roads. Death was everywhere. Mass graves had been the only way to bury those who were killed, and before we had reached the city proper, I could see the freshly churned earth where victims had been buried.

  We hadn’t reached the town centre when a voice hailed us from a roadblock and, seconds later, SPLA soldiers flocked to our sides. In my urgency to retrieve the papers Allam had given me, permitting me to travel as far as Bor, I explained about the expedition. The soldiers scrutinised the papers carefully. When they instructed me to follow, I knew there was no other choice.

  The soldiers led us deeper into Bor’s old town. On the banks of the Nile, a cathedral had been raked by gunfire, portions of its stone wall charred black by fire, and a grave dug for the seventeen clergymen and nuns who’d been murdered here a few weeks before. The market place was empty, burnt to the ground three
months ago, and ATMs hung from walls like eyeballs from their sockets. Everywhere, the walls were daubed in crude graffiti: FUCK YOU NUER! declared one pillar. DINKAS DEFEATED! exclaimed another.

  After navigating several patrols and checkpoints, the soldiers deposited us at the state compound in the middle of town. It was here that the state governor’s representatives gathered, co-ordinating the defence of not just the city but the whole of Jonglei State. The local SPLA commander was sitting under a tamarind tree as we approached, surrounded by men in camouflage uniform. Many of the militia were sporting sunglasses and flip-flops, and all crowned their heads with a simple black or maroon beret. The madness of the moment put me in mind of some terrible ’80s action movie – only this was real.

  ‘Let us start at the beginning. I have seen your papers, but I would hear it from your own mouth. Who are you?’

  ‘My name,’ I began, ‘is Levison Wood. I’m . . .’ It felt churlish, all of a sudden, to say ‘explorer’, so instead I told him I was a geographer, leading an expedition to walk the length of the Nile. I showed him the press cuttings I had saved from Uganda, my papers from Andrew Allam, spoke about how two SPLA soldiers had valiantly guided me from Juba to Minkaman. ‘I’m here to pass through,’ I finally explained. ‘To follow the west bank north.’

  The local commander paused a moment, as if to scrutinise me further. Then he gave an emphatic shake of the head.

  ‘Now is not a good time to be in Bor, not for an Englishman, not even for South Sudanese. Do you know what is happening here, Levison Wood?’

  I told him I did.

  ‘If you truly did, you would not be here, asking for soldiers to take you north. The UN base in town has just been attacked. We cannot tell what happens next. My advice to you is to leave Bor and not think of this expedition again. This is a war.’

  The local commander afforded us four soldiers to escort us across town, to the ruins of the South Sudan Hotel. What we found was a compound in ruins. The South Sudan Hotel had once been one of the most progressive places in the newly formed nation, a place for international leaders and businessmen looking to invest in the new country to stay. Now, it was an empty shell. Hunching close to the river, its walls were strafed with bullet holes and, in the road outside, a minibus had been destroyed by more gunfire. Across the hotel courtyard, the doors had been kicked in or torn from their hinges. Windows were shattered, and I could see the black marks where fire had licked up the walls.

  The manager had little to say – only as he showed us to rooms along the veranda did he reiterate what the local commander had said: this was no place for a foreigner to be, and certainly not a white man. Dinka soldiers, he said, had stormed the UN compound in town to attack the Nuer who had barricaded themselves there. In the fallout of the attack, the UN peacekeepers had opened fire – forty-eight Nuer now lay dead, along with seven Dinka, and a group of Indian peacekeepers. As he left, I found I was grateful for the protection the local SPLA commander had given us – but the thought grew in me: what use were four men against a city spiralling out of control?

  For a few hours, the South Sudan Hotel was our refuge. Only when hunger started to gnaw at my guts did I return to the veranda, to find Siraje in his room next door. It was time, I told him, to venture back into town – if only to find something to eat.

  Under the watchful eyes of our SPLA guard, we left the compound and ventured back into Bor. The heart of the old town was awash with armed civilians. Everywhere, eyes turned to follow us; groups of Dinka gunmen loitered on the intersections, dissuaded from approaching only because of the armed guard. This was no time to explore what Bor had to offer, and the guards led us to an Ethiopian restaurant, where we hurriedly ordered food. Even here, the diners were armed to the teeth: AK-47s hung across shoulders or rested in laps. Eyes considered us from every corner. By the time the food had arrived, I could tell Siraje had lost his appetite; the terror, visible on his face, was hardening in his gut.

  ‘They think we’re UN,’ he whispered.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I told him. ‘We’ll be back at the hotel soon – but you have to eat . . .’

  Our bellies filled, we left the restaurant in haste. Dusk was already settling – or perhaps it was only the storm clouds thickening overhead – but we had not yet reached the compound when a man lurched out of the shadows between two buildings and staggered into the street to confront us. In a second, he had cocked his rifle, raising it up to point directly at me.

  He was screaming in a language I didn’t understand, but the hatred in his eyes eclipsed all words. His eyes rolled madly. In an instant, Siraje threw his hands into the air; in another, the SPLA guards had their weapons raised, striding in front of me to drive the man back. There was a terrible moment in which nothing happened and everything was possible; then the man lowered his weapon, hawked up phlegm to spit at the ground, and slunk off through the door of a nearby house.

  ‘What did he say?’ I asked.

  One of the soldiers answered: ‘He said . . . he will kill you, because you are here with the UN.’

  For a moment, I remained silent. There would have been no use protesting I was here for my own expedition, that I was not part of the UN in any way. Reason and logic didn’t count for anything in situations like this. Emotions were running too high in Bor; anti-Western sentiment leached out of every pair of eyes. I looked at Siraje: ‘Are you okay?’

  He nodded, no longer shaking so visibly. ‘I put myself in the hands of God,’ he answered.

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ I said – and, without another word, we raced for the hotel.

  No sooner had I settled into my room than the darkness smothered the hotel. Lying in the comforting blackness, I tried not to think of what tomorrow had in store. My plan was to go back to the local commander and talk again about leaving Bor for the north – but, the more I thought about it, the less real it felt. Bor was only the front line of the ongoing war; whatever the north had in store, it would be much, much worse.

  It was only moments after I closed my eyes that the first gunfire sounded. Immediately, I sat up, listening to the fighting erupt. Somewhere, close to the hotel, a running gun battle had broken out. Perhaps the Dinka were storming the UN compound again, or perhaps rebels were making a play for Bor. All of a sudden, the room was illuminated in a wash of bright red. I got to my feet and crept to the window.

  When I drew the broken blinds back, I could see tracers lighting up the night sky, illuminating the rooftops of Bor in snatches of brilliant colour. With every passing second, the gunfire seemed to grow closer. I heard the familiar crack of 7.62-calibre AK-47 rounds as they pounded the compound next door. The dull thud of DSHK rounds reverberated through the ground. The question was: who was firing? Was it a rebel incursion? My heart began to pound, keeping syncopated time with the gunfire. Shit, I thought. Were the rebels bent on recapturing Bor? Surely, we would have got wind of this?

  I told myself to calm down – it was more likely to do with the attack on the UN base. The battle might have been moving to the streets, flocking this way. I waited for a lull in the gunfire and made a decision: if I was going to survive this night, I had to know what was going on.

  Racing out onto the veranda, I found Siraje already emerging from the room beside mine. The way he looked at me, he was desperate for direction. ‘Where to?’ he asked.

  Across the courtyard, soldiers and armed civilians were already gathering in the shadows. Who were they? A sudden burst of gunfire sundered the silence and Siraje threw himself back behind the door, trying his best to look calm.

  ‘Maybe we should go over the fence, get to the Nile,’ he said. ‘We can hide in the reeds until morning . . .’

  I hurried to the wall and peered into the west, over the black murkiness of the river. The smells of the Sudd swamp were rich and earthy. Slowly, I backed away. ‘I’d rather risk a stray bullet than get chomped by a croc in that bloody river,’ I said. There was only one other way to go. ‘Up,’ I said, an
d started to run.

  Across the courtyard, close to the river’s edge, a half-finished five-storey building stood as a reminder of better times. We burst through the shattered door and swept away the hanging wires that blocked the stairwell. Running up the concrete stairs, we didn’t stop until reaching the open rooftop, which glistened with spent brass bullet cartridges and shards of glass.

  From here, we could see the street fight being played out in snatches of light, machine-gun fire in the thoroughfares, fires erupting in buildings a few streets away. The night was warm, and the sounds and smells put me in mind of my tour in Afghanistan, which seemed such a long time ago.

  On the rooftop, Siraje and I settled down. The minutes seemed endless. For three quarters of an hour, the fighting was intense. Flurries of gunfire fought flurries of gunfire, the sounds ebbing and flowing along the streets. More than once, I peered over the edge to see dark shapes charging past the hotel compound. I reached for the cell phone in my pocket, but the signal kept flashing in and out. Below, the gunfire intensified for one enraged minute, and then . . . only the silence.

  By midnight the fighting had almost abated. Apart from the occasional shot, whoever it was had had their fun for the evening. Coaxing Siraje out of his hiding, we tramped gingerly back down the concrete stairs, past the trashed rooms, and to our terrace. SPLA soldiers had, by now, filled the open spaces, gathering in the relative safety of the hotel car park. To my relief, they ignored us completely as we made for the veranda.

  ‘Get some sleep, Siraje.’ He only stared at me, as if nervous to go back to his own room. ‘Don’t worry, Siraje. If you hear another attack, if you hear anything, just come and knock on my door.’