An appeal feature from Friday's edition of the UK's "Independent"...
On 7 March 2004, Paul Makwek was in barracks in south Sudan, cleaning his uniform when his commanding officer rushed in and told him to stop. A ceasefire had been declared in the long, bitter civil war between north and south Sudan; the fighting that had killed two million people was over. Paul was free to go home. He was [14].
"I couldn't believe it," Paul says. "It was too good to be true." So he ran out into the bush, took a knife and carved the date into his arm. "I was so happy I had to do something," he says, adding that he had bled profusely. "But I didn't feel pain. I knew [that] this was it. The day I could begin to feel normal again." Paul's career with the Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA) had lasted for two years.
Today, Paul is sitting in a bamboo hut in Leer, a tiny settlement comprised of mud huts in south Sudan, with his two former comrades-in-arms, John and Matthew. The boys were abducted from the Leer primary school playground together, and made to walk, handcuffed by rope tied so tightly that they burned with pain. For two years, the trio fought side by side, often not knowing who was fighting whom, but noting it was the children, not the adults, who failed to return.
Now they run a dried-fish stall on Leer's main street. And today Paul is explaining to the actor James Nesbitt how much it means to be doing what he's longed for since he was forcibly recruited at the age of 12: to be "normal" again.
As the late afternoon sun casts a glow over the boy's arm, Nesbitt spots the unusual scar. "It means [that] we'll never forget that day - we just look at Paul's arm," smiles Matthew. Nesbitt is appalled. "How could they do this to children?" he rages. The star of Cold Feet and Murphy's Law, Nesbitt has come to south Sudan as an ambassador for Unicef, to publicise the difficult process of the demobilisation of child soldiers.
When Nesbitt asks the boys about their memories of killing, they stare at their feet and say [that] they're not sure because they never knew how to use their rifles. Then Matthew suddenly says [that] he remembers very well killing two people. His companions glare at him. Later, we're told [that] it's difficult for the children to confess to killing specific people.
Atonement for a death in battle is [100] cattle - a fine way beyond anything these boys' families could ever afford. Wounding someone costs about 20 cattle. Yet neither the chiefs nor the government seem to have considered calculating the cost to these boys of the loss of their childhood.
How can you help children who have been physically and psychologically abused, in a region as poor as south Sudan? What does it say about the horror of a child's experience if his response to the news of his impending release is an act of self-mutilation?
Throughout our five-day trip, Nesbitt frequently expresses his anger at the terrible loss of childhood of the child soldiers: "Oh my God, what sort of society can allow a breakdown like this to happen?" And he frequently reflects on his own "lucky accident of birth". He grew up in [County] Antrim, Northern Ireland, the youngest child of an "inspirational" primary school head teacher and the "most wonderful" mother. "I was adored as a child, and now I'm enjoying some success as an actor, so I might as well do what I can," he says. The father of two daughters, Mary, five, and Peggy, nine, he is both horrified at the child soldiers' plight and, at times, incandescent with rage. "What we're talking about is a childhood without love, what my children take for granted, what I took for granted. These children are made to do evil, to do things they don't understand; they are made old before their time."
Our guide and translator, Kim Jial, was volunteered by his own father. His parents nearly divorced over his father's zealous sacrifice; he was seven at the time. Ten years later, his family presumed [that] he was dead and interred his spear in a burial ceremony. But he'd escaped to Kenya, and today works for Unicef, helping former child soldiers to reintegrate, a job [that] he performs with unsentimental good sense. At one point, he relates how, during the early enforced marches, water was often in such short supply that adult soldiers would order the children to urinate, wait for it to cool, then drink it.
For girls who were abducted, life was different but no easier. Tabitha, 17, runs a group for former girl soldiers, knitting and performing plays about their military lives. As a young child, Tabitha and her family had feared that her older sister Anna might be dead, because she had been abducted by the SPLA. The only good thing about Tabitha's own abduction, at the age of [11], was the discovery that her sister was very much alive. At their tearful reunion, Tabitha learned [that] Anna was a "wife" of an SPLA officer, and pregnant. Anna warned her sister to do as she was told, or the consequences would be terrible.
Rape is how we might describe what happened to the girl soldiers: they were made sex slaves, with the additional chores of cooking and carrying. Only Tabitha's age prevented that from happening. As the sister of the commanding officer's wife, she also received certain "privileges". She was charged with nursing wounded soldiers, most of whom died. Their bodies would be disposed of at the side of the barracks. "You get used to the stench," she says. Most of all she missed her mother, particularly when she was beaten.
"How often were you beaten?" asks Nesbitt.
"Uncountable," responds Tabitha. "Uncountable," repeats Nesbitt, horrified. Only that morning he had spoken to his daughter Peggy, who had been impressed [that] he was sleeping in a mud hut. Much of the rest, he admits, he will "sanitise" for his daughters' ears.
Different worlds; different lives. Yet a childhood is always a childhood, as Nesbitt repeatedly reflects, and its loss or perversion is monstrous. "How can people do such evil things to children?" he rails. "What goes on in the world that this can happen?"
Raised a Presbyterian at the height of the [Northern Ireland] Troubles, Nesbitt relates how his "progressive" parents sent him to learn to play the piano at a Catholic convent. His understanding of the civil war between the Islamic, Arab north and the Christian, black south is immediate and instinctive. Trying to make sense of the children's tales, he frequently quotes from the Bible. We hear one of the most eloquent summaries of the cause of the war from a child called Rachel: "My mother said [that] the Arabs and blacks were fighting over the soil, about who should own it."
Rebel armies have been forcibly recruiting children around the world since the Crusades. We have become familiar with images of children brandishing guns in Sierra Leone, Myanmar, Uganda and, most recently, in Darfur. It was after the fall of Mengistu in Ethiopia in [1991], where the SPLA had trained, which led to the dramatic increase in the recruitment of child soldiers.
But official figures in Sudan make a mockery of what we hear from the children and their families. There are no statistics on the number of children killed, but the brother of one demobilised child tells us that at least 10 children were lost in every (extended, 60-person) family. That's one in every six children.
But it was the SPLA that became the first rebel force to suggest the release of their underage soldiers in 2000. Unicef's boss at the time, Carol Bellamy, flew to Sudan to meet the army's leaders, and demobilisation began the following year. Yet repatriation and rehabilitation has been a laboriously slow, and often haphazard, affair. Children who return to school often find themselves isolated and sitting in classrooms with children much younger than themselves. They're forgotten how to read and write, or even how to speak Arabic.
Paul and his friends say [that] they prefer to be busy, and to play football, and forget. Unicef's field workers emphasise that more than anything, these children need schooling and skills to find a place in their communities.
For the former girl soldiers, any hope of a "normal" life is problematic. After their time in the army, they are often considered unfeminine and aggressive, making them poor prospects as wives. Not only have they been raped by many soldiers, but it is perceived they would "march" around, arguing with their husbands.
David, 17, speaks bitterly of his lack of schooling over his three-and-a-half-year stint with the SPLA. He still wakes up screaming from his nightmares of killing people, before his family calm him down and remind him [that] he is at home and free. Some classmates admire him for being a soldier, but David says: "I tell them [that] they shouldn't admire me. I tell them [that] it was terrible, how I'll never forget this woman who I helped to kill. She was told [that] she'd be beaten if she didn't get water for us soldiers. When she wouldn't, we were all made to beat her. I didn't want to, but I knew that if I refused, I'd be killed myself. Soon the woman was beaten so much [that] she was screaming and panting. Then she was unconscious, and later she died. I felt terrible because it felt as if I was killing my mother."
For several moments, David looks unbelievably sad. Nesbitt says [that] he is sorry that we have forced him to remember that time. But David says [that] he shouldn't be sorry. "When I talk about that time it gets it out," he says.
The following morning, in Leer's bustling market place, David is working at his brother's shop, which sells plastic sandals, children's dresses and Fifties-style bras. "My friend," cries David, embracing Nesbitt with delight. "My heart is big to greet you like this," he beams as Nesbitt chooses presents for his daughters. "Mine, too," beams Nesbitt.
The actor says later: "I admit I can be sentimental and romantic - and journalists often talk about my charm - but for me, meeting these young people, I can only marvel at their ability to endure, and their spirit. I feel I've come away from Sudan much wiser than when I left home. I don't just mean [that] I've been humbled by what I've seen. I'm awestruck by the children and their resilience, and if I can help in any way as an ambassador for Unicef, then that is what I should be doing."
Your money will help Unicef to reach children who have been used as soldiers or affected by the conflict in Sudan: 0800 037 9797; [www.unicef.org.uk/childreninconflict].
Comments