A few weeks back I was assessing another congregation close to Lokirarat. I met the Chief of Lokirarat, Joseph Kwaja, and he informed me that the group of displaced people were still in his area. They had now moved to Lokoruba, which is about twelve miles from Nyangele. He informed me that their situation was not good at all. Upon arriving back in Yei I informed the Program Manager and we immediately went to UNHCR to report the group’s situation and their needs. I felt it necessary to follow up with the people personally. After discussing the displaced people with others at Samaritans Purse, we decided it best to go in and do an assessment of the village.
On October 2nd, we left the compound in Yei and headed to Lokoruba. After about a two hour drive we arrived in Lokoruba. The village was down a walking path, so we parked our truck and began walking. Upon reaching the village we saw many make-shift houses. There were crops planted which made us happy to see. As we explained to the leader of the village what our purpose for coming was, he quickly rounded up all the necessary people to talk with. They began to tell us their story.
Gideon and Lemeri Nelson are brothers and were there the day the LRA came in. They were kidnapped, but later released. Gideon explained that as they were resting from working
in their garden, they saw the men making their way into the village. There were around 36 members of the LRA who began to get people together, and steal all of the village’s supplies. They left with around 42 people, and everything the village had to survive on. Gideon told us that the LRA made them carry everything that was stolen all the way to Mundri, which is about 100 miles from Nyangele. Once in Mundri the LRA released 38 people and kept 4 children. The 4 that were kept were 2 boys and 2 girls, all around age 12. Those children haven’t been seen since that day the other 38 left from Mundri.
Once the LRA left the village, the remaining people all fled to Lokirarat. They stayed there 2 months, before going to Lokoruba. The people have suffered from many sicknesses and diseases since arriving in Lokoruba, ranging from diarrhea to malaria. “We stay hungry because of the diarrhea,” one man told us. There is no proper health care in Lainya, so the people aren’t receiving any treatment for their health problems. Food has been another struggle. They were given a small amount of food back in July from the Catholic Church in Yei, but haven’t received anything since. The men in the community have started hiring themselves out as casual laborers and buying food in the market with the money they make.
They get one meal a day usually consisting of beans, posha, and greens. They have planted ground nuts, okra, field peas, and potatoes. Another NGO, Malteser, provided them with a hoe and a pick ax to use for cultivating.
The community is lacking basic living necessities though. They do not have proper latrines. They are using areas just outside their living space which is very dangerous. They are also not burying dead animals which can cause sickness and disease. There is not a boar hole close enough to them to get clean drinking water from. They have been drinking river water that is not boiled, which is causing a lot of their sickness. They have make-shift houses, with no protection from mosquitoes at night. There aren’t even any mosquito nets to sleep under in the village. They informed us that just last week two people died from malaria. The two people were a married couple and also the p
arents of the children the LRA did not release back in June. There are a total of 173 people who are displaced. There are about 100 adults, and the rest are children.Since fleeing Nyangele in June, 15 people have died from various causes, a few even from starvation. The village is in serious need. We hope to be able to partner with them to provide some sort of medical attention. Many of the children have scabies and other easily curable illnesses. We checked around thirty children for malnutrition, and three of them showed strong signs of extreme malnutrition. The LRA is a very evil group of people who has displaced this entire community, along with many others. The people of Nyangele do not deserve what has happened to them. They do deserve God’s love and provision just as everyone else does. I hope we can see what God would have us as an organization do for the people of Nyangele.
Just this week I went to Nyangele to take photos of where the people used to live. It was a very eerie experience. As we pulled up, after about a two and a half hour ride into the bush, everything was abandoned and has grown up. There were still chairs and a table in one tukul with peanut hulls on the table. My translator and I walked around taking photos and just looking in on their church, clinic, market, and all the homes. I can't understand how a grou
p of people can be so evil. The LRA needs to be stopped. A country that's just come out of 21 years of civil war, is still suffering at the hands of this evil group and their even more evil leader. I, as an American, can't even fathom what these people have gone through. Please pray for the people from Nyangele. It's just the name of a village half way around the world to most who will read this, but I've shook their hands. I have spent time with them, talked to the people, held the babies, and played with the children. God hasn't forgotten about them, and neither can I.
