Tough times made us tougher: A tale of a Sudanese child soldier
Feb 02, 2011
IT is 6:30am yet the sun is blazing like a hot furnace, sending Simon Noon into the shade for protection. However, his clean shaven head which is coupled with marks cut across his brow, a sign of manhood amongst his Dinka kin, do not give him much of a chance.
By FREDERICK WOMAKUYU
IT is 6:30am yet the sun is blazing like a hot furnace, sending Simon Noon into the shade for protection. However, his clean shaven head which is coupled with marks cut across his brow, a sign of manhood amongst his Dinka kin, do not give him much of a chance.
Noon is, however, not worried about this since he was born and brought up under the heat. He may have probably seen worse things during war in his nation than heat.
What worries Noon more is the future of his nation, the future he found his fore fathers fighting for and the future he was born to fight and grew up fighting for.
Noon devoted much of his life fighting for the liberation of Southern Sudan from Arab oppression, where his ancestors suffered segregation on the basis of their skin colour.
They were treated as second class citizens, forced to become muslims and observe the Sharia law despite their christianity and animist beliefs. They were also denied development and their children were forced to study Arabic and Islam.
According to Noon, who is well versed with this history, they have been fighting oppression since 1821 to 2005 when the Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed, granting Southern Sudan semi-autonomy and self determination in a referendum.
They held the referendum on January 9 and he was happy to vote.
“It was an emotional moment. I had never voted before,†Noon adds.
Noon can half-heartedly express his joy, not in words, but a smile for his nation to grant a referendum for independence of the South something they have been fighting for, since the time of the British colonial masters.
And then the Egyptian colonial masters, followed by the muslim North Arabs who took charge of the country at independence in 1956.
His caution emanates from the fear that the border between South Sudan and North Sudan is yet to be agreed upon and the Abyei dispute threatens to bring another war.
“This worries me so much. Arabs do not easily give up, they fight up to the last man. This is something I have learnt over the years,†Noon explains.
Working as a security guard by night and studying medicine at Juba University during day time, Noon is working hard to compensate the time he lost while fighting.
He works at the Afro-Asian Business Centre in Southern Sudan and uses the little money he earns to pay his tuition.
His childhood past sounds like a scene in a movie. A native of Rualbet Village in Relbar Payam in the Warrap State of Southern Sudan, Noon was born in 1986 at the climax of the civil war.
The Arabs were in charge and they were oppressing the blacks, some of whom had picked up arms to fight. Poor, elderly and unable to join the fighting, his parents opted to stay around and face the wrath of the Arabs.
At the age of five, Noon was forced to join an Islamic school at Wau, the capital of Warrap state.
During his studies, he and other young Christian southerners were confined in the school and not allowed to go back home to see their parents.
“During holidays, however, I could escape through the bush and go home to see my parents. However, they would look for us and bring us back to school,†he explains.
Noon was forcibly renamed Hussein Ahmed and told to abandon his Christian name of Simon.
All the missionary schools were converted into Islamic schools and forced to adopt Islam as a religion and Arabic as a language of communication in all the places.
During that time, there was intense fighting between the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) led by John Garang and the Sudan army led by Omar El Bashir.
The war cut off people from their farms and famine devastated the area. Over 100,000 people in Southern are said to have died of starvation between 1987 and 1994.
“Both my parents died. All my eight siblings survived because they joined either the SPLA or the Sudan Army that feed them. I was at school,†he explained.
Tired of the oppression, Noon joined the SPLA in 1994 at the age of eight. He was immediately taken to Torit, an SPLA base where he received military training.
However, at the SPLA camp, life was not easy. They were often bombed by aircrafts from the Sudan army and many of his colleagues died, recalls Noon.
At the end of the training, and out of the over 3,000 boys taken for training, only 100 had survived the bombing from the Arab army. Noon was one of the lucky survivors.
“I do not know how I survived but maybe God wanted me to live. It was a tough life, of bombings, diseases, walking long distances hungry and differences emerged among us,†he explained.
Noon says the SPLA recruitment policy went through the chiefs. He says the chiefs received orders and requests requiring every family in the south to contribute a family member annually to join the movement. The requirement was mandatory.
The communities were also required to contribute food, cows and goats to the SPLA. Some did it voluntarily while others who refused were forced.
The community also helped to hide the SPLA fighters during tough clashes.
Noon says he saw many people die and many others wounded. At one time, he got shot in the leg and while other wounded SPLA fighters were flown to Lokichoggio, Kenya, to receive treatment, he remained. He still limps.
He says they treated his wound as minor so he was treated by SPLA volunteer health workers there.
He remained in southern Sudan throughout the war and is a living testimony of reverberations of heavy fighting during the war that applied anything to kill anybody.
“Even now I cannot sleep at night. I keep remembering of the bombs,†adds Noon.
The Arab culture in the north dominated that of the black southerners.
Women were not allowed out of the house and if they came out, they were supposed to wear the hijab, a Muslim attire for women that covers from toe to head.
Any dress that exposed a woman’s body was considered indecent and such a woman was sentenced to death by either stoning or hanging.
A woman was not allowed to hug another woman and female and male students sat separately at school.
Females and males were not allowed to shake or hold hands in private or public either. Such things were considered immoral and attracted a punishment of one to 50 lashes.
Blacks were not allowed to display their culture anywhere in print, electronic media or in public dance, music and drama. They were instead taught Arabic culture.
According to Noon, women were the most affected because of their black skin and to avoid this some bleached their skins to look like Arabs.
Noon says the oppression inspired them to fight harder.
“We knew whatever it took, whether by military might or death, we had to achieve freedom,†he adds.
Now that freedom is in their hands, Noon has advice for the rulers in power. He says they should treat each individual equally regardless of skin colour, religion, race, political affiliation or any other difference to achieve loyalty and patriotism.
“I have retired from the army and concentrating on my studies which I resumed recently,†he says.
“I am doing Medicine at Juba University because I want to help my people in this peaceful time. I have lost a lot of time but God is my witness and direction,†he adds.
IT is 6:30am yet the sun is blazing like a hot furnace, sending Simon Noon into the shade for protection. However, his clean shaven head which is coupled with marks cut across his brow, a sign of manhood amongst his Dinka kin, do not give him much of a chance.
Noon is, however, not worried about this since he was born and brought up under the heat. He may have probably seen worse things during war in his nation than heat.
What worries Noon more is the future of his nation, the future he found his fore fathers fighting for and the future he was born to fight and grew up fighting for.
Noon devoted much of his life fighting for the liberation of Southern Sudan from Arab oppression, where his ancestors suffered segregation on the basis of their skin colour.
They were treated as second class citizens, forced to become muslims and observe the Sharia law despite their christianity and animist beliefs. They were also denied development and their children were forced to study Arabic and Islam.
According to Noon, who is well versed with this history, they have been fighting oppression since 1821 to 2005 when the Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed, granting Southern Sudan semi-autonomy and self determination in a referendum.
They held the referendum on January 9 and he was happy to vote.
“It was an emotional moment. I had never voted before,†Noon adds.
Noon can half-heartedly express his joy, not in words, but a smile for his nation to grant a referendum for independence of the South something they have been fighting for, since the time of the British colonial masters.
And then the Egyptian colonial masters, followed by the muslim North Arabs who took charge of the country at independence in 1956.
His caution emanates from the fear that the border between South Sudan and North Sudan is yet to be agreed upon and the Abyei dispute threatens to bring another war.
“This worries me so much. Arabs do not easily give up, they fight up to the last man. This is something I have learnt over the years,†Noon explains.
Working as a security guard by night and studying medicine at Juba University during day time, Noon is working hard to compensate the time he lost while fighting.
He works at the Afro-Asian Business Centre in Southern Sudan and uses the little money he earns to pay his tuition.
His childhood past sounds like a scene in a movie. A native of Rualbet Village in Relbar Payam in the Warrap State of Southern Sudan, Noon was born in 1986 at the climax of the civil war.
The Arabs were in charge and they were oppressing the blacks, some of whom had picked up arms to fight. Poor, elderly and unable to join the fighting, his parents opted to stay around and face the wrath of the Arabs.
At the age of five, Noon was forced to join an Islamic school at Wau, the capital of Warrap state.
During his studies, he and other young Christian southerners were confined in the school and not allowed to go back home to see their parents.
“During holidays, however, I could escape through the bush and go home to see my parents. However, they would look for us and bring us back to school,†he explains.
Noon was forcibly renamed Hussein Ahmed and told to abandon his Christian name of Simon.
All the missionary schools were converted into Islamic schools and forced to adopt Islam as a religion and Arabic as a language of communication in all the places.
During that time, there was intense fighting between the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) led by John Garang and the Sudan army led by Omar El Bashir.
The war cut off people from their farms and famine devastated the area. Over 100,000 people in Southern are said to have died of starvation between 1987 and 1994.
“Both my parents died. All my eight siblings survived because they joined either the SPLA or the Sudan Army that feed them. I was at school,†he explained.
Tired of the oppression, Noon joined the SPLA in 1994 at the age of eight. He was immediately taken to Torit, an SPLA base where he received military training.
However, at the SPLA camp, life was not easy. They were often bombed by aircrafts from the Sudan army and many of his colleagues died, recalls Noon.
At the end of the training, and out of the over 3,000 boys taken for training, only 100 had survived the bombing from the Arab army. Noon was one of the lucky survivors.
“I do not know how I survived but maybe God wanted me to live. It was a tough life, of bombings, diseases, walking long distances hungry and differences emerged among us,†he explained.
Noon says the SPLA recruitment policy went through the chiefs. He says the chiefs received orders and requests requiring every family in the south to contribute a family member annually to join the movement. The requirement was mandatory.
The communities were also required to contribute food, cows and goats to the SPLA. Some did it voluntarily while others who refused were forced.
The community also helped to hide the SPLA fighters during tough clashes.
Noon says he saw many people die and many others wounded. At one time, he got shot in the leg and while other wounded SPLA fighters were flown to Lokichoggio, Kenya, to receive treatment, he remained. He still limps.
He says they treated his wound as minor so he was treated by SPLA volunteer health workers there.
He remained in southern Sudan throughout the war and is a living testimony of reverberations of heavy fighting during the war that applied anything to kill anybody.
“Even now I cannot sleep at night. I keep remembering of the bombs,†adds Noon.
The Arab culture in the north dominated that of the black southerners.
Women were not allowed out of the house and if they came out, they were supposed to wear the hijab, a Muslim attire for women that covers from toe to head.
Any dress that exposed a woman’s body was considered indecent and such a woman was sentenced to death by either stoning or hanging.
A woman was not allowed to hug another woman and female and male students sat separately at school.
Females and males were not allowed to shake or hold hands in private or public either. Such things were considered immoral and attracted a punishment of one to 50 lashes.
Blacks were not allowed to display their culture anywhere in print, electronic media or in public dance, music and drama. They were instead taught Arabic culture.
According to Noon, women were the most affected because of their black skin and to avoid this some bleached their skins to look like Arabs.
Noon says the oppression inspired them to fight harder.
“We knew whatever it took, whether by military might or death, we had to achieve freedom,†he adds.
Now that freedom is in their hands, Noon has advice for the rulers in power. He says they should treat each individual equally regardless of skin colour, religion, race, political affiliation or any other difference to achieve loyalty and patriotism.
“I have retired from the army and concentrating on my studies which I resumed recently,†he says.
“I am doing Medicine at Juba University because I want to help my people in this peaceful time. I have lost a lot of time but God is my witness and direction,†he adds.