March 29, 2024

Bureaucratic idiocy

This is a diary entry from when I was in Sudan last month that I haven’t had a chance to post before now . . . It ‘s a nice counterpoint to the logistical ease of travel I experienced on the Gration trip a couple of weeks later.

24 August, 2009

Well – it’s been a long 24 hours. My original flight from Nyala to Khartoum was sent first to Juba. After the heat and chaos of Kalma camp it was nice to take off up into the sky, and the pilots let me sit in the cockpit with them as we came into land. Flying over the lush green that is South Sudan at this time of year, it was incredible to see Juba come into sight – a sprawling town that has really only sprung up since I was in the south a few years back. A mix of UN passengers boarded – Nepalese police, Namibian and Jordanian soldiers and (luckily as it was to turn out for me) a Kiwi logistician – and off we set for Khartoum.

Flying over the capital I experienced the same sense of rage as I felt the first time I flew over the capital at night. But before I got to reflect on this for too long we hit turbulence – not quite as bad as that I experienced during an aborted attempt to land in N’Djamena last year, but still enough to get the heart racing. Out the window, lightening flashed across the sky. I watched as we passed over what could only have been Khartoum airport – – and kept going. The one crewmember took a call from the Captain, and despite the smile she valiantly maintained, it was pretty clear we were not making it to our destination.

Sure enough the Captain’s voice soon came over the PA: “Ladies and gentleman – due to extreme bad weather we were unable to make our landing in Khartoum. We will be flying to our alternate landing site in El Obeid. We should get there in about half an hour.”

At this point I was still pretty philosophical. “At least we’re going to a place I have never been!” I joked with the crewmember who came to sit beside me. By 10pm we were at El Obeid. I remembered from a briefing given to me by one of UNAMID’s colonels earlier in the week that this was a logistics base for the UN. All equipment for Darfur comes into Port Sudan and travels by road from there. From the Port to El Obeid there are proper roads. For the hundreds of kms west of El Obeid dirt tracks that turn to mud for the rainy season are the norm

My equanimity began to fail me after I was asked to get off the UN minibus I had boarded with the rest of the passengers at El Obeid. “ID?” we were asked. I showed my passport and the papers that had been carrying me on UN flights all week. “No UN ID?” “No – just my passport. At the compound I exchange this for a visitors badge” I explained. The crew had radioed in advance of our landing to get the UN transit camp for the night. Despite having been in and out of these camps across Darfur all week, the UN security officer said “No. Sorry. We can only take UN staff. You must get off the bus.”

At El Obeid with my Kiwi ally, who secured me a couch for the night

At El Obeid with my Kiwi ally, who secured me a couch for the night

My thought process went something like this: Really? The UN really wants to leave its female civilian passenger stranded alone in pitch black darkness in a town she has never been and knows no one while escorting a busload of military men into the security of a UN compound for the night? “Don’t worry. They’ll have to take you. They can’t just leave you here” the Nigerian soldier seated beside me said reassuringly.

The situation was too absurd to even muster anger over. I started laughing as I picked up my backpack and got off the bus. The Kiwi logistician I had befriended earlier in the evening began making calls on my behalf. Eventually it appeared that although the lower level staff were not told this, at the highest level there was a process for accommodating non-UN staff. If I would pay USD 118 for the privilege of sharing a shipping container with someone for the night, then I could join the rest of the passengers.

Prices are relative, and with no guesthouse in El Obeid for a Plan B alternative, I was in. Reboarding the bus I was taken to the logistics transit camps. When our busload was asked to show ID at the gate I avoided eye contact. We were waved through. Great! I’ve never slept in a transit camp, I thought – still strangely unfazed by the whole situation. Alas, it was not to be. Once we got to the camp the claim that I could not be accommodated because I was non-UN resurfaced again. An Indian man quietly came up and assured me he could sneak me into a container for the night with no one noticing, but somehow that didn’t seem like the best of ideas to me. I thanked him for his kind offer and sought out my Kiwi ally. A few more phone calls later he managed to find someone who knew someone in town that could offer me a couch for the night. It was now pushing midnight and after a day in Kalma followed by seven hours of travel, with no place to buy food, and my water nearly out, I felt a huge amount of gratitude to this stranger who had agreed to take me in for the night.

Our diverted plane finally leaving El Obeid the next morning

Our diverted plane finally leaving El Obeid the next morning

It’s now 9am the following morning. We are all re-grouped back at the airport. No fuel was ordered for our return trip last night so we are once again sitting, waiting. I’ve drafted an op ed – – and tried to hide it in a place where Security won’t find it. If it gets to midday and there’s still no sign of progress then I’m seeking out the bus that I hear makes a 7 hour journey from here to Khartoum. It’s a bugger because I’m supposed to be meeting Musa Hilal again today, but at least I should make my 3am flight back to Nairobi.

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