South Sudanese flow into Uganda despite peace deal

Uganda: Inside a cattle truck bouncing along a dirt road in northern Uganda are 91 people, tightly huddled on the metal tray, women and children mostly, choking from the dust that whirls up from the road. Their faces are filled with stress and relief – to be moving away from South Sudan. Some children have fallen asleep, from exhaustion and sickness, two are vomiting.

While the world's attention is fixed on Syrian refugees pouring into Europe, the migrant crisis in Africa continues unabated. Uganda – despite high levels of poverty – has absorbed more than half a million refugees and asylum seekers fleeing countries including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan and Somalia.

After 20 months of fighting that saw innumerable human rights abuses, South Sudan president Salva Kiir late last month signed a peace deal with rebel leader Riek Machar, his former deputy. 

Despite the peace deal, the flow of refugees out of South Sudan has scarcely changed. At the main entry point into northern Uganda at Elegu, some refugees say they have not heard of the agreement, while others have no confidence it will last. None are thinking of going back to South Sudan any time soon.

At a  refugee collection centre on the border, a Ugandan community services officer, Joseline Dralera, moves among the refugees, observing and offering reassurance.

A 17-year-old boy, Delish*, who has arrived with his younger brother and sister, looks up from the shade of a building where they have slumped down and says they have crossed into Uganda "just to survive". Their mother is dead and their father is in hospital with tuberculosis.

"You will survive, definitely," Ms Dralera tells him. "Relax now."

Of the 59.5 million people worldwide forcibly displaced from their homes, 3.7 million refugees and 11.4 million are internally displaced people in Africa, according to the UN High Commission for Refugees.

At Nyumazi, in Adjumani District, where the refugees are fed and housed in UN tents, registered and assisted by aid agencies, asylum seekers tell of violence and sickness.

Jackline, 12, wears a red tee-shirt with the slogan: "Trust me I'm Aussie", an Australian flag and two thumbs up. It is one of her few pieces of clothing, bought for her incongruously in South Sudan. She doesn't know where Australia is or anything about it.

Her father's second wife, Dribareo Brenda, says they left their village, Kerepi, after rebel soldiers killed and abducted people and burned their homes. When government soldiers arrived to rescue them, she says, women were raped. Jackline's mother died from HIV, her father from cirrhosis of the liver. Asked what she hopes will happen now, she says she hopes to go to school.

The main political and tribal faultline in South Sudan is between the Dinka (South Sudan's president's people) and the Nuer, like rebel leader Machar. Every day, new refugees cross the bridge from Nimule in South Sudan to Elegu, carrying little. In August, there were 3941: Dinka, Nuer, Ma'adi, all running from something. Immediately before the peace deal, the numbers surged into the hundreds per day amid fears the talks would provoke a violent retaliation. 

At Elegu, children tear at the plastic wrappings of high-energy food bars, provided by the World Food Program and distributed by World Vision, who along with Save the Children and others are active in the country. At Nyumazi, refugees spill from the cattle truck, covered in sweat and dust. Officials tell them there is food and shelter and that they will soon be shifted to a settlement where they will be given a plot of land to cultivate.

Behind them, the driver washes the vomit from the tray.

* Surnames of minors have been withheld.

Stuart Rintoul is a journalist who was in Uganda for World Vision.