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STORY: SOUTH SUDAN / BENTIU FLOOD RESPONSE
TRT: 09:14
SOURCE: UNMISS
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGES: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 11-20 NOVEMBER 2023, BENTIU / RUBKONA, SOUTH SUDAN
1. Aerial shot, IDP camp and floods, boats travelling
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Captain Taimoor Ahmad, Peacekeeper, Pakistan:
“We might not be saving these people from bullets, but we are saving them from the floods.”
3. Aerial shot, pan right of dike wall in front of IDP
4. Aerial shot, excavator working on mud road
5. Med shot, peacekeeper instructing excavator
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Captain Taimoor Ahmad, Peacekeeper, Pakistan:
“Behind us is the IDP camp, and the UNMISS camp. And all around this area is five to six feet of water. What you see just in front of you is a thin road which is connecting this, I would call an island with the outside world.”
7. Close up, peacekeeper looking at water
8. Aerial shot, pull-back overview of IDP
9. Aerial shot, pan left of entire IDP
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Major Saad Sultan, Peacekeeper, Pakistan:
“Bentiu has been hit by the worst flooding in the last 60 years and due to this, there is an inundated area of more than 5,400 square kilometres. So, this is the challenge which is only faced by Pakistan METF (Military Engineering Task Force) in South Sudan. Our work is more hectic, and it is more risky, and it is more equipment heavy. And as you can see, we are working round the clock.”
11. Close up, excavator dumping dirt
12. Med shot, early morning preparing boats
13. Med shot, truck dumping dirt
14. Wide shot, peacekeeper looking over airstrip
15. SOUNDBITE (English) Major Noreen Akhtar, Peacekeeper, Pakistan:
“No, we are not off at all. Even on Sundays and weekends, we are working.”
16. SOUNDBITE (English) Captain Taimoor Ahmad, Peacekeeper, Pakistan:
“Yeah, it's 24/7. And God forbid if something happens, then it carries on. It never stops.”
17. Med shot, bulldozer moving dirt
18. Close up, machine steering wheel
19. Med shot, peacekeeper operating machinery
20. Med shot, perspective of excavator claw
21. SOUNDBITE (English) Major Noreen Akhtar, Peacekeeper, Pakistan:
“As an engineer unit, we are maintaining the main supply route. We are maintaining dikes, maintaining the airstrip. We are using our machinery extensively. But still, the dikes are sometimes deteriorated, and we have to even rush out late at night or any time. To protect the civilians.”
22. Med shot, bow of boat passing sunken ruins
23. Wide shot, peacekeeper’s moving boat
24. Close up, peacekeepers on boat passing sunken ruins
25. Wide shot, peacekeepers testing water level
26. Close up, water level testing stick
27. Med shot, peacekeeper boat passing dikes
28. SOUNDBITE (English) Captain Taimoor Ahmad, Peacekeeper, Pakistan:
“Flood mitigation and response, it usually starts with the reconnaissance of dikes early in the morning, on foot, as well as the boat reconnaissance. Moving around our dike system, which is now more than 80 kilometres of the dike system. if we did not have this dike system around us, then the place where we are standing here at this moment, it would be in five to six feet of water. There would be no IDP camp, there would be no Bentiu town, and there would be no UNMISS presence here in sector Unity, especially in Bentiu, if this dike system was not available.”
29. Aerial shot, main supply route
30. Med shot, local women using main supply route
31. Wide shot, machinery operating on road
32. Wide shot, machinery operating on road other side
33. Close up, peacekeeper operating excavator
34. SOUNDBITE (English) Major Saad Sultan, Peacekeeper, Pakistan:
“There is only one road which is available in this area, which is used by everyone, including the humanitarians and the locals. Indeed, we are maintaining this MSR or main supply route. So, if that route is compromised, there is no communication at all.”
35. Aerial shot, Rubkona airstrip 180 turn
36. Aerial shot, Rubkona airstrip top-down shot
37. Med shot, truck watering runway
38. Wide shot, machinery moving on runway
39. Close up, peacekeeper operating scope
40. SOUNDBITE (English) Major Saad Sultan, Peacekeeper, Pakistan:
“The Rubkona airstrip is the second It is a mud airstrip so it, requires constant maintenance. It’s used by all the government agencies as well as by the humanitarian agencies.”
41. Med shot, two peacekeepers looking over camp
42. Med shot, peacekeeper looking over camp
43. Wide shot, pan left over camp
44. Aerial shot, boat navigating floods
45. Aerial shot, boats from above
46. Wide shot, perspective of boat following dike
47. Aerial shot, whole IDP camp
48. SOUNDBITE (English) Captain Taimoor Ahmad, Peacekeeper, Pakistan:
“If I am making one dike this means that I'm saving their lives indirectly. So, this is, in way a very proud for me that I'm saving actually saving their lives from this water.”
49. Aerial shot, camp move to floods
Pakistani peacekeepers serving with the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) in Bentiu have erected and maintained a vast network or mud walls or dikes to protect hundreds of thousands of Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) from floods.
Unity State in South Sudan is facing a dual crisis one born out of conflict and the other out of the climate crisis. Perhaps the most pressing challenge for all in this camp is keeping three years of relentless flooding from washing everything away.
SOUNDBITE (English) Captain Taimoor Ahmad, Peacekeeper, Pakistan:
“We might not be saving these people from bullets, but we are saving them from the floods.”
Bentiu IDP camp is home to a fluctuating population of between 100,000 and 250,000 displaced people.
SOUNDBITE (English) Captain Taimoor Ahmad, Peacekeeper, Pakistan:
“Behind us is the IDP camp, and the UNMISS camp. And all around this area is five to six feet of water. What you see just in front of you is a thin road which is connecting this, I would call an island with the outside world.”
The camp is the only dry ground for kilometres around and access is limited to a single road and mud airstrip.
SOUNDBITE (English) Major Saad Sultan, Peacekeeper, Pakistan:
“Bentiu has been hit by the worst flooding in the last 60 years and due to this, there is an inundated area of more than 5,400 square kilometres. So, this is the challenge which is only faced by Pakistan METF (Military Engineering Task Force) in South Sudan. Our work is more hectic, and it is more risky, and it is more equipment heavy. And as you can see, we are working round the clock.”
Flooding started in 2020 and never relented. It has submerged entire villages and displaced hundreds of thousands.
SOUNDBITE (English) Major Noreen Akhtar, Peacekeeper, Pakistan:
“No, we are not off at all. Even on Sundays and weekends, we are working.”
SOUNDBITE (English) Captain Taimoor Ahmad, Peacekeeper, Pakistan:
“Yeah, it's 24/7. And God forbid if something happens, then it carries on. It never stops.”
Pakistani peacekeepers are on constant guard providing vital engineering support.
SOUNDBITE (English) Major Noreen Akhtar, Peacekeeper, Pakistan:
“As an engineer unit, we are maintaining the main supply route. We are maintaining dikes, maintaining the airstrip. We are using our machinery extensively. But still, the dikes are sometimes deteriorated, and we have to even rush out late at night or any time. To protect the civilians.”
The most important part of the engineering units support is dike maintenance.
SOUNDBITE (English) Captain Taimoor Ahmad, Peacekeeper, Pakistan:
“Flood mitigation and response, it usually starts with the reconnaissance of dikes early in the morning, on foot, as well as the boat reconnaissance. Moving around our dike system, which is now more than 80 kilometres of the dike system. if we did not have this dike system around us, then the place where we are standing here at this moment, it would be in five to six feet of water. There would be no IDP camp, there would be no Bentiu town, and there would be no UNMISS presence here in sector Unity, especially in Bentiu, if this dike system was not available.”
Without this constant maintenance all efforts to keep this vulnerable population safe would be in vain.
SOUNDBITE (English) Major Saad Sultan, Peacekeeper, Pakistan:
“There is only one road which is available in this area, which is used by everyone, including the humanitarians and the locals. Indeed, we are maintaining this MSR or main supply route. So, if that route is compromised, there is no communication at all.”
If the road is cut-off, it will impact the delivery of life-saving humanitarian aid.
SOUNDBITE (English) Major Saad Sultan, Peacekeeper, Pakistan:
“The Rubkona airstrip is the second It is a mud airstrip so it, requires constant maintenance. It’s used by all the government agencies as well as by the humanitarian agencies.”
The Rubkona Airstrip is the only way out of Bentiu without it the community would be completely isolated from the outside world.
SOUNDBITE (English) Captain Taimoor Ahmad, Peacekeeper, Pakistan:
“If I am making one dike this means that I'm saving their lives indirectly. So, this is, in way a very proud for me that I'm saving actually saving their lives from this water.”
