South Sudan: I Was Young When I Left Home
A single father returns to his homeland after being forced to flee more than 20 years ago. An amazing story of the power of hope.
Zakaria John Zaza worked for Medair as a translator during our emergency response in Mina Camp. He spoke candidly with correspondent Stella Chetham about his life and the crisis he is now living through as a returnee.
Why did you leave South Sudan originally?
I left in 1990, when I was 17. There was heavy war between northern and southern Sudan. That is what made us run to Central African Republic. When they came and attacked my town (Yambio), many died, and people were running... I was shocked.
Our family ran on foot across the border. The government there took us to a camp called Mboki. We spent two years there, then the government of Sudan sent us an airplane and we came back to Sudan, in the north. I left my mother in Central African Republic and went to the north alone.
What was life like in Khartoum?
When I arrived in Khartoum, there was a camp like this. It was given by the U.N. for displaced people. After six years they gave it to us as plots and I received my own house.
I learned how to sew clothes and I become well-known, and I opened my shop. I continued to work, and I married the mother of these children.
She was South Sudanese. I fell in love with her and after a little bit she agreed, then I made a wedding, we married. Then we had a firstborn, a girl, and she died. The second birth was a son, his name is Michael [gestures to his boys beside him], and this is the third, Peter, and this is number four, Emmanuel, and this the last one, William.
Zakaria speaks openly with Stella about his life, his sorrows, and his hopes for the future.
We started to face a difficult life. Every day, the conditions grew too hard. We started to tell our people that we wanted to go home to southern Sudan and they agreed.
So I told my wife that now people are returning back to southern Sudan because there is a separation. I don’t think that our life will continue well in north. The best for us is that we go home.
My wife refused. She says she cannot go to southern Sudan because the conditions here are too difficult. Her mother and father are there in the north. She doesn’t know anything about southern Sudan.
So when your wife refused to join you, what did you do?
I said... okay. I took my children and my bags and they took us here. The journey took one day and a half. It was very crowded. They boys didn’t understand anything, except the older one.
When we arrived, we spent more than 19 days, then my wife came here to us. She spent six days with us here. Her complaint was that when she wanted to get water there was no water pipe here, no electricity, TV is not working. Here people are carrying water by their heads, and there are mosquitoes… [sighs]
Angela Jacinto, from Western Equatoria state, carries water on her head in Mina camp.
We are two months and 14 days here now. I did not expect to be waiting so long. I want to work to get some money for them, and at the same time I want to cook for them, I want to go and wash their clothes, I want to take them to the hospital when they are ill… what can I say?
If the answer was in my hands I would leave now, now as I speak to you. I would leave now. By foot if there was a way, I would take them on my shoulder and go to my mother. My mother is in Western Equatoria state, back home. She is well, safe, in our house. I am just waiting now. When we will start, God knows.
People want to go home. Yes, we are in South Sudan, but people want to go to their places where they were born.
It has been 21 years since you left Yambio. What are you expecting to find when you return?
There in Yambio? [pause] This question I cannot answer. It is difficult. [head in hands]
If I answer it, I will start to cry now. I am sorry.
Sometimes I say to myself, Zakaria, what made you go north? The best thing for you, you could have lived in Central Africa and returned home. It is one day from Central Africa to home. Now I’m coming back home and it takes two months and something? Maybe we will enter in five months, six months…? [shakes head] It is too difficult. I have no answer for that question because it is too difficult. [Struggling to compose himself]
Even my mother now, when I will meet with my mother, I don’t know what will happen at that time. You know. It is too sad. [sighs] Sorry. You know, I faced many difficult conditions, more than that. It is just a simple question but I don’t have a… how… I don’t know how to answer it.
What are your hopes for the future?
My future is my children. When I arrive there in my home, I want to go to learn again, to increase my knowledge, and to work hard and pay my children’s school fees, and let them become... I need one of them to become engineer, and a doctor, something like that. And teacher, and pharmacist. Hey, William, you want to become a doctor in the future, please? [said with a laugh; William is his two-year-old son]
My hope for South Sudan is let God bless us, we don’t want to fight in our new nation, we want to work together as one people. We pray to God and we want our new country to grow, we need water supplies, and roads, and airports, and schools, university, everything. That is my hope for South Sudan.
That’s my hope too.
Your hope is my hope.
The people of South Sudan are a simple people. As anybody in America, Australia, we love all the people around the world. We love all the world. We want to get education first of all, and medicine, and water, good roads, to go and come safely.
I didn’t get to finish my education because of war. My aim was to become a pilot. Maybe still one day I will. Nothing is impossible.
God be with you.
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Take a Walk through Mina Camp, where Zakaria and his family are stranded, waiting to get home to Yambio.
View a photo gallery of life in Mina Camp.
Medair’s emergency response teams (ERTs) are providing water access, latrines, and hygiene promotion to 20,000 people in Mina and Abayok camps, free health care to Mina camp and the host community of Renk, and essential items like blankets, mosquito nets, and plastic sheets to those in need of shelter.
This web feature was produced with resources gathered by Medair field and headquarters staff. The views expressed herein are those solely of Medair and should not be taken, in any way, to reflect the official opinion of any other organisation.
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