South Sudan’s makeshift capital starts from zero

By Katie Nguyen

RUMBEK, Jan 12 (Reuters) – The depth of poverty in southern Sudan becomes clear on visiting Rumbek, temporary capital of the oil-exporting region under a peace deal signed on Sunday.

A young boy wanders amidst ruins in Rumbek’s central market. Rumbek is due to become the temporary ‘capital’ of southern Sudan under a peace deal to be signed this weekend by the government and the main rebel movement. (AFP/File). .

A walk in the town reveals none of the trappings of a petrodollar capital – no shopping malls, cinemas or nightclubs, no motorways, showpiece hotels, science parks or universities.

In this dusty centre of underdevelopment, there is not even mains electricity, piped water or asphalt roads.

Rather than office blocks, tall mango trees, thick with ripening fruit, dominate Rumbek’s skyline. No brick building is higher than one storey. Instead of four-lane traffic, the odd bicycle or moped cautiously navigates the town’s dirt roads, juddering at every deep dip.

A decade after government-held areas of southern Sudan started sizeable oil exports, rebel-held areas have yet to join the modern world.

Once a key battleground in Sudan’s 21-year civil war, Rumbek will serve as the seat of power for the south’s first ever regional administration before it moves to Juba or Ramciel.

Former guerrillas turned politicians will soon arrive in this town of thatch huts to take up posts as part of a peace deal signed on Sunday to end Africa’s longest running conflict.

They face the massive task of building a nation from a rural base whose way of life has remained unchanged for centuries.

Decades of fighting the northern Islamist government has left the south severely underdeveloped, prone to disease and exposed to the ravages of the rains that leave fields under water for six months of the year.

SURVIVAL

Many southerners say rather than television or five-star hotels they need the basics that will keep them alive.

“More than anything, the struggle is for survival,” said Rebecca Akoi, who at 22 has just returned to school.

Despite her wish to become a teacher, she has to fight for time to go to classes and study.

If there were running taps, she would not have to trek with her jerrycan to the communal water pump twice a day. If there was power, maybe she would own a washing machine rather than spend hours after school soaping and rinsing her family’s clothes.

“Life is hard. We are used to it, but we want change,” Akoi said. “I hope peace will bring better education, more teachers.”

Education is inadequate. Classes for the lucky few are held in cramped rooms or under trees, with a textbook shared between six or seven pupils. Well-trained teachers are in short supply.

In south Sudan, only one in a hundred girls will complete eight years of primary school education, according to the United Nations’ children’s charity UNICEF.

Akoi’s girl friends are more likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth than complete primary school.

With education so limited the southern government will be hard pressed to find the skilled and literate labour force that it hopes will propel the south into the 21st century.