By then a great crowd of people had congregated. Some were cooking. Some were anxious to leave because they wanted to reach Pochella that same night. Others were calling out, trying to locate the relatives of babies and young children they had snatched from the bloody river.
I was able to find a shirt and a pair of shorts – a friend of mine from Panyido had managed to hold on to his bag in which he had some spare clothes – and teamed up with boys of my own age that I knew. They had some beans and maize that they had brought from the camp. We cooked, resting in the middle of the crowd, watching people passing by.
When my companions and I had finished our meal we got to our feet and rejoined the dazed throng. We tried to stay together and, for safety, to keep to the middle of the crowd, but we soon got separated. I plodded on until I was too tired to continue, then joined a group of people sleeping on the side of the road. I was unable to sleep, though, so I got up again and kept moving until I found another family sleeping on the side of the road. I huddled up with them as more refugees joined us.
I was still awake when, around midnight, there was a sudden commotion. I couldn’t see anything, but I heard people calling out and scrambled for safety in the middle of the group as a voice wailed somewhere in the darkness. Someone had been dragged off by a lion!
When at last morning came we found an ownerless bag lying on the ground and discovered the victim had been a teacher. Some soldiers told us that they had seen the lion, but couldn’t shoot for fear of hitting the refugees.
We still had a long way to go, and it was already getting hot, so those who had food found a place in the shade and started cooking breakfast. A few were willing to share what they had with us children.
Later that day we reached the Sudanese town of Pochella, where I found my friends in a state of turmoil. We were desperate to join up with the boys from our groups again, but many had disappeared. There were no adults to call us for food distribution. We were alone.
At about ten o’clock that same evening, while the new arrivals were still settling in, we heard the sound of an aeroplane coming from the direction of Ethiopia.
“It’s food! It’s the UNHCR!” someone shouted.
But others dived for cover. “Lie down! Lie down!” they cried.
The plane flew over Pochella and disappeared in the direction of the river, then it returned. It had been sent by the north Sudanese government to attack us!
“Don’t look up!” a woman near me warned. “From a plane your eyes look bigger than a river. They will drop a bomb on you. Don’t look at it!”
As she was speaking, we heard two bombs exploding on the other side of the border. Then the plane came for us.
We learned later that a large number of refugees had been killed in the first strike. In Pochella more cows than people died because, mercifully, the part of the town that was hit was only sparsely populated.
And that was how President Omar Hassan al-Bashir’s government welcomed us back from Panyido.
Chapter 8
We boys stayed in Pochella for some time. The situation was almost as bad as it had been in those early days at Panyido. However, once again, after a few days the elders took charge and called out group and unit numbers to return us to our original groups. As more gunships were expected, we were then transferred to a part of the forest a ninety-minute walk from the town. In that dense and gloomy place we were to hide from the eyes of the enemy. We were not allowed to spread white shirts on the ground or to pitch tents. Fires were also forbidden. Although we were now safe from attack, we, the survivors of the 1987 famine, were once again starving.
The communities of refugees who had remained at Pochella were no better off. There were masses of people and no supplies. Nor were there any villages nearby where clothes might be exchanged for food. Every kind of leaf and fruit had been tried and what was edible had been eaten. There was nothing left.
This was our second famine and we were well aware of how many had died the first time. My friends, Gor Koal and Kout Deng, and I decided that we would live. One morning we left the minors’ camp to pay the communities a visit, but we quickly realised that there was no one there who could assist us. We would have to fend for ourselves.
We had been told that there was a cattle camp somewhere in the dark forest, so the three of us set off in the direction of Ethiopia to look for tracks that might lead us to the cows. We did find spoor and followed it towards the forest, hoping we wouldn’t have to go too far, for the forest was a dark and frightening place and all we had with us was one small knife. After a while we stopped to discuss our situation. “Let’s follow the tracks for another hour,” Gor, the eldest, suggested, “and if we haven’t found anything by then, we’ll turn back.”
I was the youngest, but they knew that I was committed and would enter that dark place where no human voices could be heard, only the calls of birds. Kout also agreed to the plan and we continued on our way, following the cattle trail until we reached a valley where many tall trees grew.
Suddenly we saw something moving in the bush. It was a kind of tawny colour – like a lion! We told ourselves to be brave. “Don’t run! Let’s see what it is first,” Gor said.
We knelt down for a closer look. It had horns! Lions do not have horns, so we took heart and approached it very cautiously. It was a cow – a sick one, but a cow.
But how to kill it so that we might eat it? The problem was our knife. It was very small and blunt. After much discussion, we agreed that the cow was dying anyway so we might as well wait until it was dead. It would provide us with food for many days and we could just stay there and eat and eat. We praised God for the gift of a cow that was near death.
There we sat, in the undergrowth, concealed by the branches of tall trees.
“We are wasting our time. Why don’t we just kill the cow?” Kout suggested after an hour or so. By now it was about four o’clock and the forest was fast growing dark.
Gor disagreed. “Suppose the owner comes and accuses us of stealing his cow? We’d better wait.”
“It will take too long,” I protested.
As we were two against one, Gor agreed to let us try. We approached the cow gingerly, hunger lending us courage, then touched its body to see if it would react. It was indeed very weak, but when we touched it, it suddenly stood up on its four legs and looked at us with wild eyes.
“Okay, let’s wait for it to die, as Gor said,” I ventured.
But we had scarcely sat down again when the cow started ambling away. We jumped up, but, weak or strong, the cow ran faster than we were able to.
“Let’s follow it anyway,” Gor said. “Maybe it knows where it has come from, and we can sleep there.”
The cow, however, vanished into the darkness of the forest, and we were afraid to follow because it might take us to a place where there were wild animals like lions.
We just stood there, trying to remember how to get back to the camp. Then Kout reminded us that we had been walking since early morning and would never get back before dark. There also might be lions on the way – we could hear them roaring behind us – and we agreed it would be better to walk until we found a sturdy tree to sleep
