South Sudan: There Has Never Been a Peaceful Year'

Father Gregor Schmidt is a German Catholic priest and missionary. He has been working in South Sudan since 2011, when it became an independent state after years of civil war.

On a recent visit to Germany, he spoke to Deutsche Welle about his experiences in a country in which renewed fighting persists amid a looming humanitarian crisis.

DW: Describe for us the situation where you mission is stationed?

Father Gregor Schmidt: Our mission is in Fangak County which is in the north western corner of Jonglei State. There are no roads leading into our county, but there is a river, a tributary of the Nile along which traders bring goods, so we have a small market, we have a clinic. But apart from that, the whole county area is quite isolated from the rest of the region. So we are in the fortunate situation that the civil war has not reached our county. Elsewhere there have been battles, people have been displaced, and many of them come to our region because they assume that we will not be affected.

There are no battles taking place in our village, although we have the county capital in the north, situated next to the river Nile, and on the other side is a soldiers' barracks that has changed hands - sometimes the government, sometimes the rebels. There is no bridge over the river, so it is not possible to cross with heavy artillery, so for that reason there has never been an attempt to enter inside the county.

How are relations between local communities and rebels led by Riek Machar?

There is no personal contact with Riek Machar; he has never been in the area. The Nuer are all supporting the rebellion, more or less. They would like to see the president step down.

It is difficult in this conflict to differentiate between the local population and the rebels, because there is no distinction between civilians and fighters in our sense.

This is because pastoralist people, those who have cattle, all possess arms because they have to defend themselves against cattle raiders. There are a lot of inter-ethnic clashes every year, with thousands of people dying in those conflicts. There has never been a peaceful year, even before this civil war.

In each region there are different reasons why people want to fight, or why they feel they need to defend themselves.

When local residents come to your mission, what do they tell you?

We have a lot of refugees who have come from other parts of the country. Because we are a Nuer area, naturally only Nuer come to us, because they have family, distant relatives where they can stay. They all had to leave because their villages were plundered, looted, burned down, destroyed in different ways.

We have a small clinic so the Red Cross chose our village to help on the rebel side - they do this with official permission from the government, because they are neutral and work on both sides to help the wounded.

We've heard a lot of stories, we have seen a lot of people without arms or legs, because they have been amputated, and those stories certainly also affect how the local population lives.

There is tension because we don't know what the future holds. Because of the war there are no trader boats coming any more, so supplies in the market have run short. Various food items like rice and sugar have run out. What remains is the local food, sorghum, which is planted there in the region, and certainly fish from the river, and also milk from the cows is always there - that is the staple that the people rely on.