Cattle replaced by fish as South Sudan reels from two years of devastating floods
It is often said that water is a blessing in South Sudan but the people who live in this impoverished nation have been given good reason to reconsider an unquestionable truth.
Two years of unprecedented flooding has changed the way the country looks, with thousands of kilometres of rich agricultural land now lying under water.
In the counties which surround the town of Bor, in Jonglei state, some 200,000 people have been forced to seek higher ground after an island formed on their land.
Huge areas of rich agricultural land are now under water
In communities where residents raised cattle and grew cereals like sorghum, fish now dart through the water and large water lilies have spread themselves on the surface.
The entire ecosystem, in an area of some 1,300 square kilometres, has changed beyond recognition.
The neatly constructed roofs of numerous towns and villages are visible above the water line but there is no sign – or sound – of life from within. The highways and byways have been washed away.
We hitched a lift to Bor on a helicopter with the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP), which is now supporting 2.6 million people in South Sudan with emergency food aid.
But there is no way to move beyond Bor and into the floodlands in a conventional vehicle.
Instead, the WFP uses amphibious craft called “sherps”, and Sky News was given a couple of seats in the back of one of these contraptions on a mission to save an ageing dyke.
The floodwaters overwhelming the counties of Jonglei state stem from two separate sources.
Children wade through floodwaters after the Nile broke the dykes in Pibor last year
Much of the water has flowed from Lake Victoria – at the head of the Nile river system – some 800 kilometres to the north.
Unprecedented rainfall has been flowing into the lake since summer 2019.
The Ugandans, who control the dam at the top of the Nile, have been releasing water to prevent what is known as “backflow” from destroying communities on the lake itself.
As a result, the White Nile has burst its banks to devastating effect in South Sudan.
The second source is found in last year’s rainy season – which never actually stopped in South Sudan.
The UN uses special vehicles to get around
Now, this year’s monsoon is scheduled to start. The cumulative effect of both events has resulted in fundamental environmental change.
The UN is trying to restore an aging dyke in the vicinity of Bor.
It would allow tens of thousands of people to return to the land, but the earthworks have been destroyed in more than 40 places by the flooding.
Local people want to get back to farming
We watched small groups of men lug 80kg bags of sand and mud into position in just one of these sizable gaps.
There are 1,500 working on the dyke and all are men who used to farm in the area. Now they live in displacement camps in surrounding towns and villages and everyone here dreams of returning to the land.
“We need to protect our territory – this is our territory and the water is beyond our control,” said a young man called Mangol Guy Peter.
“God has taken but he will also provide.”
But the state minister for housing in Jonglei, Elijah Mabior Bol, is less certain about God’s role. He suspects his nation will bear the brunt of decisions made by human beings in far flung places.
The state minister for housing in Jonglei state thinks global warming is to blame
“It is when you have given up of thinking, scientifically, that’s why you say it is God,” he said.
“But to us, we say it is global warning. I remember in 1966 and 1967 we used to walk here from Bor on foot and now it is different territory. I can’t believe it – I can’t believe this was the soil we used to walk on when in elementary school in the 60s. It has totally changed.”
The people who grew cereals and raised animals in this region have gone. Those who remain must fish or grind flowers of water lilies into small amounts of cereal.
It is a difficult new world and they are trying to adapt.
The Syrian presidency has announced it’s assembling a special taskforce to try to stop nearly a week of sectarian clashes in the southern Druze city of Sweida.
The presidency called for restraint on all sides and said it is making strenuous efforts to “stop the fighting and curb the violations that threaten the security of the citizens and the safety of society”.
By early Saturday morning, a ceasefire had been confirmed by the US special envoy for Syria, Tom Barrack, who posted on X that Syrian President Ahmed al Sharaa and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed to a ceasefire supported by US secretary of state Marco Rubio.
The post went on to state that this agreement had the support of “Turkey, Jordan and its neighbours” and called upon the Druze, Bedouins, and Sunni factions to put down their arms.
Sky News special correspondent Alex Crawford reports from the road leading to Sweida, the city that has become the epicentre of Syria’s sectarian violence.
For the past 24 hours, we’ve watched as Syria‘s multiple Arab tribes began mobilising in the Sweida province to help defend their Bedouin brethren.
Thousands travelled from multiple different Syrian areas and had reached the edge of Sweida city by Friday nightfall after a day of almost non-stop violent clashes and killings.
“We have come to protect the [Arab] Bedouin women and children who are being terrorised by the Druze,” they told us.
Arab fighters said they had come to protect the Bedouin women and children
Fighters at a petrol station
Every shop and every home in the streets leading up to Sweida city has been burned or ransacked, the contents destroyed or looted.
We saw tribal fighters loading the back of pickup trucks and driving away from the city with vehicles packed with looted goods from Druze homes.
Shops and homes leading up to Sweida city have been burned or ransacked
Several videos posted online showed violence against the Druze, including one where tribal fighters force three men to throw themselves off a high-rise balcony and are seen being shot as they do so.
Doctors at the nearby community hospital in Buser al Harir said there had been a constant stream of casualties being brought in. As we watched, another dead fighter was carried out of an ambulance.
The medics estimated there had been more than 600 dead in their area alone. “The youngest child who was killed was a one-and-a-half-year-old baby,” one doctor told us.
Doctors said there had been a constant stream of casualties due to violence
The violence is the most dangerous outbreak of sectarian clashes since the fall of the Bashar al Assad regime last December – and the most serious challenge for the new leader to navigate.
The newly brokered deal is aimed at ending the sectarian killings and restoring some sort of stability in a country which is emerging from more than a decade of civil war.
Israel and Syria have agreed to a ceasefire, the US ambassador to Turkey has said.
Several hundred people have reportedly been killed this week in the south of Syria in violence involving local fighters, government authorities and Bedouin tribes.
As the violence escalated in the southern province of Sweida, Israel launched airstrikes, including attacks on Wednesday on the defence ministry in Damascus and a target near the presidential palace.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government said it aimed to protect Syrian Druze – part of a small but influential minority that also has followers in Lebanon and Israel.
In a post on X, the US ambassador to Turkey, Tom Barrack, said Israel and Syria had agreed to a ceasefire supported by Turkey, Jordan and others.
“We call upon Druze, Bedouins, and Sunnis to put down their weapons and together with other minorities build a new and united Syrian identity,” Mr Barrack said in a post on X.
The Israeli embassy in Washington and Syrian Consulate in Canada did not immediately comment or respond to requests for comment from the Reuters news agency.
The ceasefire announcement came after the US worked to put an end to the conflict, with secretary of state Marco Rubio saying on Wednesday that steps had been agreed to end a “troubling and horrifying situation”.
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Why is Israel bombing Syria?
After Israel warned it would destroy forces attacking Syrian Druze, Syrian President Ahmed al Sharaa told the minority group in a televised statement on Thursday that “we reject any attempt to drag you into hands of an external party”.
He then claimed Israel has “consistently targeted our stability and created discord among us since the fall of the former regime”.
It comes after the United Nations’ migration agency said earlier on Friday that nearly 80,000 people had been displaced in the region since violence broke out on Sunday.
It also said that essential services, including water and electricity, had collapsed in Sweida, telecommunications systems were widely disrupted, and health facilities in Sweida and Daraa were under severe strain.
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At least three people have been killed after a “horrific incident” at a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department training facility, officials have said.
A spokesperson for the department said there was an explosion at the Biscailuz Center Academy Training in east LA.
The incident was reported at around 7.30am local time (3.30pm UK time).
Aerial footage from local channel KABC-TV suggests the blast happened in a parking lot filled with sheriff patrol cars and box trucks.
The training centre in east LA. Pic: NBC Los Angeles
Attorney general Pam Bondi wrote on X: “I just spoke to @USAttyEssayli about what appears to be a horrific incident that killed at least three at a law enforcement training facility in Los Angeles.
“Our federal agents are at the scene and we are working to learn more.”
California congressman Jimmy Sanchez said the explosion had “claimed the lives of at least three deputies”.
“My condolences to the families and everyone impacted by this loss,” he said.
Media and law enforcement officials near the explosion site. Pic: AP
The attorney general said in a follow-up post that agents from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are “on the ground to support”.
The mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, said the LAPD bomb squad has also responded to the scene.
“The thoughts of all Angelenos are with all of those impacted by this blast,” she said.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has been briefed on the incident, his press office said in a post on X.
“The Governor’s Office of Emergency Services is in contact with the Sheriff’s Department and closely monitoring the situation, and has offered full state assistance,” it added.
The cause of the explosion is being investigated.
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