Malakal, South Sudan It was after 17:00 when the tractor rolled up. Brown and red rusted, small wheels in front of massive ones, it was an awkward, ugly, hulking brut and it was a damned welcomed sight. She jerked to a halt and two boys in soiled blue overalls slipped effortlessly from her flanks. They looked over the defeated Land Cruiser that was sunk axle-deep in the mire. They knew immediately that what was needed could be done and that it would be easy in the doing. So t

Malakal, South Sudan When the prop jet descended out of the clouds, a broad, flat, barren land spread out in every direction as far as the eye could see. Only dirt roads and round tukols and brown river channels gave distinction to the endless scrubland. Later we drove along the pitted road that diverges from the airport towards the United Nations base where we attended a meeting with the refugee agency. During the jolting ride, I gazed out the Land Cruiser's window and I tho

Malakal, South Sudan I came to South Sudan at the end of April. I came with a nongovernmental aid organization and when I arrived it was still Southern Sudan, an autonomous region in the largest and one of the poorest countries in Africa. After 17 years of civil war and then 11 years of fragile peace and then another 21 years of civil war, a so-called Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed in Nairobi in January 2005. The CPA called for a referendum to decide the south’s fat