Truck drivers reluctant to go back to South Sudan

Nimule (Uganda) - Mutunga, a 25-year-old truck driver's assistant from Nairobi, narrowly escaped with his life when gunmen ambushed his vehicle on the road to the South Sudanese capital Juba this week.

Innocent Mutunga peered wide-eyed at the bullet holes in the side of the metal shipping container on the back of his truck. "I never want to go back to South Sudan," he said.
Mutunga, a 25-year-old truck driver's assistant from Nairobi, narrowly escaped with his life when gunmen ambushed his vehicle on the road to the South Sudanese capital Juba this week.
He ran into the bush, hid and then walked for two days to get back to the border at Nimule. The bullet-riddled truck was eventually recovered, empty and with its tyres shot out, and towed back. No one knows where the driver is or if he's still alive.
Truckers are the lifeblood of landlocked South Sudan's economy but a recent spike in fighting and the breakdown of what little law and order there was, means few are willing or able to make the 200km journey from Nimule to Juba.
"It's 50/50 whether you come back alive or maimed," said Patrick Makau, a 48-year-old driver also from Nairobi, who earns up to $300 a month. It's not a sum worth dying for.
Many of the truckers are hauling food or medical supplies, both of which are in short supply in Juba after days of intense gun battles from Friday to Monday left the city's markets and warehouses looted and basic services in tatters.
Makau's cargo is still more attractive to renegade soldiers and bandits: $30,000 worth of beer.
"I have been coming to South Sudan for years, but this time is worse than the rest. They are killing people as if they are chickens," he said.
In months and years past truckers got used to paying bribes at makeshift roadblocks, but the situation has worsened.
"At some points of the Juba-Nimule road soldiers stop drivers every 500 metres and demand 100 or 200 South Sudanese pounds," equivalent to $16-32, said John Wanjala, a 40-year-old driver.

• MENA