Sooley(21)

The peace was fragile and temporary. Ethnic rivalries grew more bitter as half a dozen warlords and strongmen jockeyed for more of the money and a seat at the table. In 2013, yet another civil war erupted and the new country spiraled into violent chaos. Tribal lines were fortified as heavily armed militias attacked and burned villages, then waited for retaliation. The atrocities shocked the world. At least 400,000 people were murdered. At least four million, mostly women and children, were displaced and forced to scramble to safety in sprawling refugee camps.

Peace agreements came and went. The best way for a guerrilla commander to get the attention of Juba, and a bigger slice of the pie, was to burn some villages, commit some atrocities, and leave the rotting corpses in the mud for the benefit of Western cameras. After some of this mischief, Juba might offer another peace deal, with cash and arms to boot.



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Among the proud villagers who watched Samuel and his team on the big screen were some spies, sent in to take the measure of the town.

Just after midnight, the gunfire erupted. Beatrice heard it first, woke Ayak from a deep sleep, and yelled for the children to put on their shoes. The sickening Tak-Tak-Tak-Tak of the Kalashnikovs was a sound they had heard before. The family ran outside and joined their neighbors who were trying to determine where the gunfire was. It seemed to be coming from everywhere, and plenty of it. People were yelling, pointing, and running in different directions.

Suddenly, lights appeared and a military truck rumbled down the dirt street. Soldiers jumped out, brandishing their Kallies. One look and the people knew they were rebel soldiers, not regular army. They fired at random into the air and began yelling for the men to form a single line. A fourteen-year-old boy, a neighborhood kid well-known to all, broke and ran toward an alley, and was gunned down like a stray dog. His mother screamed and his father started toward him when a soldier knocked him down with the butt of his rifle.

“Hands up! Hands up!” the commander barked at the other men.

Tak-Tak-Tak-Tak. The gunfire was horrifying and more soldiers swarmed through the village, grabbing men and older teenage boys.

Ayak managed to say to Beatrice, “Run! Take them and run to the bush.”

Other women and children were scurrying about, not sure which direction was safe. Was anywhere safe? A gasoline bomb was tossed into the hut across the street from the Sooleymons’ and it was quickly engulfed in flames. Then there were fires everywhere, up and down the street.

The men were marched in a group toward the center of town, passing other burning homes. A fifteen-year-old girl was wrestled away from her mother, stripped naked, and shoved to the rear of a troop truck. Near the church, men from throughout the village were streaming in, all with their hands up.

“We’re just having a meeting,” a commander kept yelling through the mayhem. “Hurry up! Hurry up!”

When the men were out of sight, some of the soldiers remained and went about their business of torching the homes, laughing as they did. Beatrice managed to ease into the darkness with Angelina, James, and Chol, who tripped over a dead body and shrieked. “Hush!” his mother warned. Other women and children were looking for places to hide and somewhere to run. For a moment they stopped and listened to the horror of popping fires, Kallies, and the screams of their neighbors.

At the church, the men were ordered inside, and when it was full the rebels kept packing in more men and boys until they were pressed together so tightly they had trouble breathing. More kept coming and when they could no longer fit inside, the commander ordered them to lie down, outside, in the dirt around the church.

Two soldiers opened fire on the wide-screen television and destroyed it. The gunfire rattled the men inside and they cried for help. On cue, incendiary bombs were tossed through the four windows and the front door and three hundred prisoners screamed in blazing agony. One man, his clothing on fire, jumped through a window and was met with a hail of bullets. Other men jumped too and were easily gunned down in target practice. Ayak made it to the front door and was killed on the steps under the remnants of the television.

Outside, some of the men lying facedown in the dirt broke and ran, only to be slaughtered. The killing was for sport and thoroughly indiscriminate. Flames and thick black smoke poured from the windows as the dying prisoners continued to scream, their voices fading.

Beatrice and her children crept in the black darkness and found a pig trail that led out of town. Hundreds of other women were moving and whispering. The lights of a troop truck washed over them and they hid in a patch of thorns. Suddenly there was gunfire nearby and the voices of angry guerrillas. A woman screamed as she was shot. The women saw the silhouettes of more soldiers on foot behind them, coming, looking for them. The children followed Beatrice through a thicket away from the road and were soon lost in the blackness. In a small opening they stopped and looked down at their village. Dozens of fires were raging and the guns were still rattling away. James and Chol were crying and Angelina hushed them into silence. They eased on, always aware that others were nearby, moving as quietly as possible, going somewhere. They stumbled into an opening and came face-to-face with a squad of guerrillas guarding a group of women and children. They barked at Beatrice and her children to sit down and they did.

“Where are you going?” the leader demanded.

She was too traumatized to respond and had nothing to say anyway. A teenager with a gun walked over and told Angelina to stand up. Another joined him and they stripped off her clothing.