Remembrances of Sudan 2005-2006: Paula Claycomb

Like many of us in UNICEF, I have served in duty stations during tumultuous, historic periods of the country’s sometimes turbulent past. These include Rwanda in 1994, East Timor in 1999 (on a short but chaotic mission), Afghanistan from 1999 to 2002 during the first Taliban period (based in Islamabad) and Sudan from 2004 to 2006. This short article is a personal contribution to the 2022 anniversary of UNICEF’s 70 years in Sudan

Those three years included the worst of the ongoing Darfur genocide, the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between the north and the south, the concluding years of Operation Lifeline Sudan and the death of the southern leader John Garang. During my time in Khartoum, the concept of cluster coordination in response to humanitarian situations was also introduced and a special Darfur Emergency Office was established by UNICEF, whose staff worked independently of the regular County Office. 

It was a challenging time for everyone, including, of course, UNICEF national staff who were not a homogeneous group, coming as they did from different parts of a country that had never felt unified. Indeed, when John Garang, who had led the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) for 22 years and then became South Sudan’s First Vice President following the CPA, was killed in 2005, tensions between the two groups of staff were palpable. Below is a photo I took from the roof of the UNICEF office in Khartoum the day the news of his death in a helicopter accident broke. There was speculation that his plane had been deliberately shot down, resulting in violence by his supporters who believed he had been assassinated. 

And yet … UNICEF carried on, providing supplies, technical assistance and capacity strengthening in a steadfast if sometimes hectic manner. As Chief of the combined external relations and social and behaviour change communications section, with an incredible team of national officers and international specialists, I facilitated more VIP visits than in any other duty station, including former ED Carol Bellamy and (separately) UNICEF Ambassador Mia Farrow and her then teenage son Ronan Farrow. 

Below is a photo in a happy moment of me and a few of my C4D colleagues: Suhair, El Fadil, Amna and Sandrine. Another colleague (not pictured) is Eman Eltigani, currently the head of SBC unit in Kabul, one of many examples of national staff who have chosen (and been lucky enough) to move into the international category of staff. 

We also organized visits to IDP camps for dozens of journalists, sometimes having to chase them down as they leapt out of the UNICEF vehicles to begin their own reconnaissance and try to bring them to heel. My section managed a Returnees campaign, providing information about conditions in the south to southerners who had been displaced during the long civil war. They knew little about HIV/AIDS or guinea worm or the prices of commodities, for example. We also worked with the Nutrition Section to develop simple materials for displaced mothers in Darfur to make toys out of rags and string, to dangle in front of their babies and play with them. Community radio had been present in Sudan for years, supported by UNICEF and other organizations like the Hirondelle Foundation. We provided training and programming ideas for these committed radio journalists who often had not been paid for months. 

Many sensations go into my UNICEF years in Sudan: Reveling in the desert and water-scarce north, shocked at the basic living conditions in both Darfur and the south, fear seeing a group of Janjaweed on camels in West Darfur, delighted taste buds with the ful sandwich you could buy in the office each morning, wonder at the haboobs that blew in for a few hours and left a layer of sand on everything in the office and house. And, when it came time to leave for a new post as Chief of Landmines and Small Arms in NYHQs, fear at visiting a mined area in Kadugli, south Sudan (1 million landmines were planted there during the long war years). I learned what PPE is long before Covid-19 slammed the world in 2020.

UNICEF’s role during those years was vital, as it always is. This is a very brief and narrow remembrance of a diverse people with whom I developed relationships that have endured to this day.   Today, both Sudan and South Sudan are rocked by ongoing poverty and corruption. Qalbi maeak jamiean, my heart is with all of you. Count on UNICEF to stay with you.