The author of this article is a South Sudanese refugee who returned home to South Sudan in October 2013. He left again two months later after being shot in the December events in Juba. He argues that three years after South Sudan’s independence, the country’s people are “not free from the greed for power, from ethnicity, from corruption and other problems.”

1. The dream of pain

It is around 6 p.m. and time to go home. My friends and I have been playing our favourite game, Thian, agueleng, or hide and seek, which is exciting because of the short shrubs that dot our homeland. We have been playing tirelessly until sunset.

Now it is time to bid them goodbye: Atem-Matier de Mayen, Makuei Kuir Biar, Manyuon Atem, Galou Awan, Garang Wer, Manyang Mawut, Kuir Atem and many more. It is obvious from their sad faces that they hate to depart as much as I do. We like the sport and, most of all, we like each other.

But the sad departure is necessary lest we keep our mothers waiting, moving from hut to hut furiously searching for us. So we take off, running toward our respective homes. That is when I wake up from the dream to find blood oozing from my chest.

2. Homecoming

My name is Anyuon-Magadem and I am fourth-year student at Kabarak University pursuing a bachelor’s degree in commerce. I came to Kenya in 2002 together with my mother and siblings after war broke out in our area of Sudan.

We headed directly to Kakuma Refugee Camp where I enrolled in primary school and later joined form two at Anester Secondary School in Nakuru. From there I went to Kabarak University.

On October 19, 2013, years after calm returned to South Sudan, I went back only to find reports that my hometown, Maar in Jonglei state, had erupted again. I was told 87 people, including many of my relatives, had been massacred and several others injured in the fighting. From Juba, I helped some of the casualties at Giada Military Hospital – including my uncle, who passed on right under my eyes.

I knew I could not proceed to Maar amid reports that thousands had been displaced. Attempts to reach people from the area where I was born 26 years ago were like biting the bullet.

My uncle was buried the next day in Juba and I stayed on with relatives in the Nyakuron area.

On December 15, while preparing to go back to Kenya the current war erupted. My cousin’s children, who were living in Giada near the military barracks where the fighting erupted, could not be found. One was missing for two days.

Tensions remained high near the barracks for several days after the fighting. When we passed near the barracks on the 17^th, we saw soldiers looting empty houses. Four officers called my cousin and me in Arabic, saying 'stop', which left us trembling in fear.

They ordered us to kneel and we complied. They began to ask us a series of questions, including where we came from. We told them we were looking for a missing child.

Then they demanded to know whether we supported them or the rebel forces loyal to former Vice President Riek Machar. My cousin told them we were civilians. They immediately opened fire.

As he fell, I tried to support him from the back, but then one of the soldiers started shooting again. One of the shots penetrated my cousin and hit me in the chest. That is when I fell unconscious and dreamed of my brief, happy childhood.

3. Den of horrors

When I woke up I was in severe pain. I searched for my phone, only to realize all of my valuables had been stolen. My dead cousin’s body had also been picked over.

The soldiers were now quarrelling a few metres away from us, so I lay still, afraid they might come back, until I heard one ask, in Dinka, why he was in a rush to shoot civilians. That gave me the strength to repeat his question in Dinka.

I started to cry from the pain, but still screamed louder. The soldiers converged on me, except for the one who had shot us. He took off running. Those who remained offered to take me to Juba Teaching Hospital.

Life there was a den of horrors. The hospital was fill of dead and bloodied bodies and everywhere inside was stained red. I could not eat.

After some days, my relatives came to pick me and took me to Nyakuron. I returned to Kenya on February 4, where I received further treatment at Evans Hospital.

I had not returned to South Sudan to get shot. I had not returned to South Sudan to watch my cousin die in my arms.

4. Longing for freedom

I am told I was born in the bushes. And after years of living bush to bush, river to river and mountain to mountain, I finally caught my breath in the refugee camp.

The idea of being patriotic is far-fetched to me. I find it ironic that the diversity of our country’s tribal background causes refugee camps to be formed. But in the camps, people do not fight each other.

There I had courage and hope. Every day my dear, loving mother told me that this country will still be yours one day and you will harvest the fruit of all the blood and bones of our heroes.

I retained that hope. It consoled me until the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in Nairobi. Then there was real hope. I saw many refugees who had forgotten their motherland in peaceful Kenya rushing to Juba to look for jobs.

Even those of us who did not return voted overwhelmingly to secede from the north and we all celebrated independence on 9 July 2011.

Then we really started pouring back into our country from all wings of the diaspora, hoping that the long-awaited freedom had finally come.

But for South Sudan, it is still not yet independence. I went back home full of hope, only to get butchered by fellow citizens who were fooled by despots. We may be free from the Arabs, but we are not free from the greed for power, from ethnicity, from corruption and other problems. We are still struggling for independence and freedom.

Photo: Anyuon-magedem D’Gomba

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