Sometimes war is not loud like a machine gun, but as quietly as a child who is not breathing. The photographer Mads Nissen was clear, as he saw the boy with the bleached out hair.
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For nits, it was the second day in South Sudan. He looked that afternoon over his camera in a dusty hospital room in the capital, Juba. Products wanted not only inside the country and out again, he wanted to understand this conflict, it is said that he was not more to understand. In South Sudan, only the government and the rebels have been fighting against each other, but also countless militias, Warlords and tribes.
What would make a war to me?
The small child, the photographed containers, sat on the lap of one of the government soldiers. It was weak, and the Ribs were, the hair had faded – a sign of malnutrition. Nissen learned that the Boy is eleven months old, but only five pounds weighed in. The mother was gone, and the Boy slept since then in the barracks with the father, and between the soldiers who had to eat hardly anything. The child was calm, almost apathetic. No crying, no screaming. As it would have given up already.
Restless, only the father who had to go back to the barracks. Nissen looked at the man and the impatience saw in his eyes, the aggressiveness, while Doctors cared for his child. Nissen, himself a father of two children, asked himself: What would I do if my son was going to die and there is nothing I could do about it? What would make a war to me?
These thoughts accompanied the photographer in the next few weeks. Nissen traveled a language, a country that had tugs of war and drought, he visited refugee camps and barracks, with rebels and tribal leaders. Nissen learned that the peace negotiations fail, in the meantime, the fact that no-one really knows who is supposed to negotiate. Too many groups, too confusing.
the conflict in December 2013, with the rift between South Sudan President Salva Kiir and his former Deputy Riek Machar Broke out. Kiir, a Dinka, and Machar, a Nuer, are from the two largest ethnic groups of South Sudan; together, they had previously fought in the war of independence against the Arab North of the Sudan. In the new state, however, in 2011, under the jubilation of the world’s public, had the Dinka Say that.
massacre on both sides
After the rift between Machar and Kiir, the army disintegrated into several parts, and the hatred on both sides has been reignited. In Juba, Dinka rushed suddenly former friends from the tribe of the Nuer through the streets. It came to massacres on both sides.
The fighting started first in the North, captured but soon the whole country. And they brought the Hunger. Today, nearly half of the 13 million inhabitants of South Sudan is in need of food aid.
the Biggest Problem for the helpers, the supply of the more remote areas. Due to the ongoing fighting are some of the regions, to reach in the rainy season, already hard, almost completely cut off. Food deliveries must countless Checkpoints to pass through, which are held by various militias.
star-Reportage of East Africa Hunger and violence: How the people of South Sudan to Survive
fight The Only thing that remains of the auxiliaries, is the help through the air. Nits want to make a picture. In a helicopter, he flew with the helpers of the Unicef to the North, in the Sudd, the vast swamp, close to the border between North and South Sudan. Nits looked down at the endless landscapes of Grass and water and ended up in a village that was built on a small island in the swamps.
There were hundreds of them. Old and Young, were with children on the poor
The helpers had here established a Post, where Starving from all over the Region to register. Just who should it be?, nits asked. How should you come here? Nothing here was Yes. Nothing but water and Wide. The next Morning, Nissen saw the people. The sun just went up, and the photographer crawled out of his tent, as they appeared on the horizon. There were hundreds of them. Old and Young, with children on the arms and scrawny legs.
this Morning, when he saw the many people struggling through the marshes, through mud and Grass, so sharp that it cuts through a pair of jeans, since I have it almost overwhelmed, says Nissen. Because of the grandeur of the landscape. And the strength of the people. Short products needed to collect. Then he reached for his camera.
