..1,5 million refugees from Chad, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Uganda fled their homes and crosses the borders into neighbouring Sudan - one of the poorest countries in the world. How would they cope and how would the Sudaneese handle the situation?
Massive international efforts had to be coordinated to help the Sudaneese in their huge task.
An international refugee conference for potential donors in Khartoum in 1982 was the starting point to focus on the plight of this poor country. I participated in this conference and was subsequently contracted by the Sudaneese Commissioner for Refugees to do fund raising internationally for an information project based mainly on collecting facts through the writing and publishing of a number of booklets on the needs of the refugees. These are some photos on my mission and from my booklet: "The swelling toll of war and disruption: Refugees in southern Sudan : a photo essay on Ugandans in exile" to Southern Sudan where the Ugandans came in across the border in huge numbers to seek shelter from a dangerous and deadly situation prevailing in the northern part of their home country. Early morning in the UN Cessna from Khartoum to Juba.
Landing on a field strip in Juba in southern Sudan -country of the Dinkapeople - following a four hour plane ride southwards along the Nile provided a good view of the massive Sudd region with its swamp below.
A fisherman on the Nile with his excellent Nile perch!
Humidity of 70 % and degrees sometimes reaching 45 C!
Getting the aid across to the refugees camps-one way or the other..
An old refugee woman in a make shift clinic. A spectrum of deprivations..
A young refugee with scabies.
A shallow bore well providing the refugees with water.
Dry, dry, drought! This is a refugee camp in Eastern Sudan taken from the Cessna on another occation when we were flying East.
No paper, books or pens or the refugee schools..Sand will have to do.
There is a time to make yourself pretty no matter what..
..or to make your fellow man laugh in a very poor refugee camp in Southern Sudan.
(Photos above from my book by photographer Otto Pfister)
(The text and picture captions here are just randomly chosen fragments on a difficult and complex situation that ruled a poverty stricken and refugee burdened country in the 80`s. P E)
