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Project October 30, 2018

Scars and Resilience in South Sudan

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Originally from Bentiu, this young man fled in December 2013 when the conflict broke out in his town. He went to a smaller town called Mayom, where the war had not yet reached. There, he wanted to keep on going to school. But in April 2014, when he was 14, government soldiers came to the town and took him away. 'I was forced to be a soldier. Many people were taken that day. I knew that they were there looking for new recruits'. He was taken for training with other young men, to a military camp. 'They would…
Originally from Bentiu, this young man fled in December 2013 when the conflict broke out in his town. He went to a smaller town called Mayom, where the war had not yet reached. There, he wanted to keep on going to school. But in April 2014, when he was 14, government soldiers came to the town and took him away. 'I was forced to be a soldier. Many people were taken that day. I knew that they were there looking for new recruits'. He was taken for training with other young men, to a military camp. 'They would beat up those who resisted.' After he managed to escape, he made his way to Juba, where he now lives. He last heard from his parents and brothers three years ago. 'War creates a lot of destruction, war kills people, he says. You are going backwards. But I hope that with studying, I can make progress.' Image by Andreea Campeanu. South Sudan, 2018.

Since the beginning of the conflict in South Sudan in December 2013, children have been suffering from violence, displacement, lack of access to education, and recruitment by armed groups. Boys are sent to fight, girls are used as porters, cooks, and sometimes sex slaves. Thousands of children are serving as soldiers. Some international organizations are working, with some success, to demobilize children, both from government and rebel forces. Only a minority, though, can be reunited with their families.

Andreea Campeanu and Patricia Huon report from South Sudan and Northern Uganda in the settlements where hundreds of thousands of South Sudanese refugees have found shelter. Their project focuses on how the trauma of a people whose youth are used as child soldiers is transmitted from one generation to another.

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