WE HADN‘T EVEN BEEN IN Bukteng for a month when I awoke just before dawn to the rhythmic rat-a-tat of AK-47s and the snap-snap-snap of RPGs, followed by explosions and the sound of women and children screaming. I ran outside and saw in the distance that the barracks, where Dad bunked, were the epicenter of a ground attack. We had thought the SPLA would keep us safe here, but as it turned out, the army’s presence actually attracted enemies. Anya Anya II rebels had surprisingly joined forces with soldiers of the government in the northern city of Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, to wage a massive assault against their common enemy, the SPLA.
The attackers descended upon us from a place of strategic advantage, attempting to force the entire population of our village into the Nile. We were trapped. Either we were going to die of gunshots, or we’d have to escape into the river, where the soldiers would still pursue us.
My dad and the entire SPLA were almost immediately outgunned. Why their spies did not know of or alert anyone to the ambush, I cannot say. Regardless, my family and I—all of the civilians, actually—were now on the run, and on our own.
Mum was visibly afraid, yet acted as though she’d rehearsed for this situation a thousand times over. She mounted one twin on each shoulder, then whispered to me.
MUM: Take Nyakuar’s hand and do not let go for anything.
I grabbed my sister’s left hand—in her right, she clutched her security blanket—and we dashed away from the gunfire, along with other fleeing villagers. Wherever bullets kissed the earth, puffs of dirt leaped from the ground all around us; it was as though we were in some kind of magic act where we’d vanish into thin air by the time the dust settled.
This time there was no forest nearby to hide within, so we did as our attackers had hoped and ran toward the Nile. The river was low, and its currents were relatively weak, but there were some sections that remained very deep. There was long grass along its banks, and some of the escapees tried to hide in it. But our attackers shot everywhere indiscriminately, in hot pursuit, flattening the SPLA camp, then shooting into the water and grass and across the river, using heavy artillery.
Charging through the high grass and splashing right into the knee-high river in the predawn darkness, I looked back momentarily and could see the piercing eyes of an enemy soldier as he fired in my direction. Quite frankly, I have no explanation for why I did not die that day…or any of the innumerable other days I’ve stared right in the face of death.
The spray of bullets and people charging through the obsidian-blue liquid reminded me of frenzied fish spawning or crocodiles thrashing their prey about. Nyakuar’s wet blanket was slowing us down, and I wanted to yank it out of her hand. This was life or death, and none of the other villagers carried anything at all, except for their injured family members, and sometimes their dead. But if the blanket was the difference between a slower but focused child and a scattered, screaming one, letting her keep it was the better choice.
After slogging through the river for what felt like an eternity, we made it to the opposite bank and again ran through more high grass. We could still hear the gunfire on the other side of the Nile, but at this distance, we were safe.
To my surprise, Mum set us kids beside a termite mound and ran back the way we had come. I watched her flipping over dead bodies on the riverbank and questioning the living.
MUM: Have you seen my husband, Thabach Duany? Have you seen my husband?
People were too busy trying to reunite with their own loved ones to pay any real attention to her. I couldn’t believe how much she had lost in the past two years. I did not know if her pure, beautiful heart could take another loss, even with three of her children still with her, needing her. Loving her.
Mum trudged back over, willing the tears back inside her head. But I was strong, I thought. I knew what to say to make her—and myself—feel better.
ME: Dad is a soldier. He knows how to fight, how to hide, and how to ambush them right back. He would not have retreated with us. He would have led his soldiers to safety.
MUM: Oh, Ger. Your father had all his family in one place. For a moment, our village felt like home. What devastating loss he must feel.
I knew she was speaking of her own loss too.
I figured Mum must have been awfully in love to have raced back to the riverbank in search of a man who could not have been there. What she’d done made no sense. But then again, neither love nor war ever does.
Along with other survivors, we watched the sun begin to color our world with broad brushstrokes while enemy soldiers across the river overran Bukteng. The SPLA had lost the fight, which meant we had lost our cattle—our livelihood—as well.
This battle felt different from the helicopter assault in Liet. It was one thing to be shot at from high up in the sky, but to look into the eyes of the enemy running down our streets, walking into our huts, that was something else entirely. I began to doubt, for the first time, that a soldier’s life was for me.
At nightfall, people clustered into little groups, sitting, talking of the attack and the escape, trying to figure out who was dead and who was alive. We slept in the open air, both for lack of accommodation and to be able to spot the enemy were they to pursue us that far across the Nile.
The sun came out the following morning, and it was unanimously agreed that it was time to keep moving. Mum gathered her children together.
MUM: We had better get out of here before those soldiers find us.
I could hear exhaustion and high-pitched fear in her voice. Making another long and dangerous trek—before the blisters on our feet from the previous long journey had even healed—was the last thing she wanted to do.
ME: Can we walk home to Liet?
MUM: No, not in the dry season. Nothing grows. We’ll only starve there.
I didn’t know in which direction we were going, but because my mother had been through a civil war before, she knew where we had to head in search of safety. Then I asked her in a small voice what I’d really been wondering since we’d fled.
ME: Is Dad okay?
MUM: I don’t know, son. All we can do is find a friendly village to stay in and try to send word to him that we’re alive. Perhaps we’ll hear back. I hope so.
Underneath her statement was our mutual concern—that we might not hear back because Dad might not have made it.
ME: Perhaps he is gone for good, like Uncle Machiel?
My father’s younger brother was brought up around my mother from the time he was a little boy. He went to Khartoum as a teenager, intending to get an education. Over time, many uncles were sent to find him and convince him to visit Akobo, but it was a daunting task. Sometimes no one could find him for years. Many considered him a lost cause; he had no interest in returning to southern Sudan. He was a ghost uncle to me, which must’ve been what upset my mother.
MUM: Your father is in no way like his brother. He is steadfast. He is brave. And he always comes back.
Finding a friendly village to take us in was going to be no easy task, as we were strangers in the region, and some villages were loyal to the SPLA, while others were pro–Anya Anya II. My father was well-known as an SPLA first lieutenant (first lieutenant is a single star in military rank), so while one village would welcome us Duanys with open arms, if we walked into the wrong one…
The sun now sat atop the horizon, an orb of blinding white gold, revealing endless grassy plains on our side of the river. Other villagers dispersed in different directions, obviously scared and confused. I lifted Both onto my back, and he clung to my neck out of habit. I liked the feeling of his tiny, warm body against mine. I pointed to a tree in the distance.
ME: Should we walk toward that?
MUM: No.
She shielded her eyes from the morning’s glare.
MUM: We’ll walk toward the rising sun. That way lies Ethiopia, our ally.
A cloth wrapped around my mother’s hips was the only piece of clothing among us. We had no food, no cattle, nothing but each other. Mum placed Nyandit on her shoulder, Nyakuar took my hand in hers—infuriating, filthy blanket glued inside her other one—and we walked.
This was the day our lives as Sudanese villagers ended. We were now refugees.