A Visit to the World’s
Newest Country
Associate editor Karen Stiller was invited to see the life-changing
work Canadians are doing to help in “a very, very difficult place” –
South Sudan. By Karen Stiller
Even from 5,000 feet above, I could see I had it all wrong. The Yida Refugee Camp in South Sudan sprawled like a vast village below our Cessna air- craft – just 18 kilometres away from one of the newest international borders in the world dividing
Sudan from South Sudan. I had not expected a refugee camp
to look like a small and growing town, but in many ways that
is exactly what it has become. A town by nobody’s choice.
From the air it is a barren and brown landscape
broken up by scattered trees and scrub brush – and now
also by straw huts that serve as temporary homes to the
37 000+ (and growing daily) refugees who have made
their way to this unlikely place of refuge. “It is a very,
very difficult place,” says David Philips, country director,
Samaritan’s Purse, South Sudan. “But as bad as a refugee
camp can be, it’s not a war zone.”
Sky-blue tarps dominate the landscape, tied down over
the roofs of the straw huts to protect them from dry wind
and torrential rain. Most of them are printed with the logo
and name of Samaritan’s Purse, the Canadian evangelical
One of the
newest international borders in the
world divides
Sudan from
South Sudan,
the world’s
latest nation.
ministry based in Calgary that has brought our team of journalists here, the first stop on our journey to visit two refugee
camps. They are the lead non-governmental organization
(NGO) in the Yida camp. (Several other EFC affiliates also
work in South Sudan. See sidebar on p. 30 for full list.)
Samaritan’s Purse – better known to me, at least, for
their Operation Christmas Child shoebox campaign – is
one of few NGOs present in the Yida camp. It was Franklin Graham, president and CEO of Samaritan’s Purse
International, who prompted this trip in the first place.
Concerned that Canadians might not fully understand the
tragedy still unfolding in this long-troubled part of northeastern Africa, he suggested Jeff Adams, communications
director for Samaritan’s Purse Canada, find a way to let
Canada know what is happening here. I am part of a team
that includes Kevin, a Calgary-based CTV photojournalist
and Tina, a freelance radio journalist who works primarily
with CBC and who will become a good friend by trip’s end.
Our journey to Yida was a two-and-a-half-hour flight
from the tiny dim airport in Juba, the capital city of South
Sudan, the world’s newest nation. But for the refugees
who make their way to Yida, it is usually a trek from two
to 10 days, almost always on foot, carrying children and
whatever possessions, food and water they can manage to
bring. This is in landlocked Africa in May. The day before
we landed in Yida it was 48. 9 degrees Celsius.
In and around the Juba airport, signs still hang that
say, “Countdown to Southern Sudan Referendum.” They
feature a sketch of a hand ramrod straight above a large
inked thumbprint in a circle and the word “Separation.”
Heat, time and dust have made the posters look older
than they must actually be, because the vote took place
just over a year ago in January 2011, and the dream of
independence became reality on July 9, 2011.
The dream itself of a Sudan free of war – and particularly a South free of routine and devastating attacks – is
also looking a little battered by now. If the international
community is disappointed, they are probably not terribly
