Human Wrongs Watch
By Dorothy Lusweti, Boroli Refugee Settlement, Uganda, (UNHCR)* – When 13-year-old Yayo Tangko turned up at the Boroli refugee settlement in Uganda earlier this year with her four younger siblings, she feared the worst for her missing parents. “They are dead, because otherwise they would have come looking for us,” the South Sudanese teenager told aid workers.
© UNHCR/D.Lusweti | Yayo Tangko (centre), with her sister Yotok to her left. The two girls looked after their younger siblings in Uganda.
It turned out she was wrong and the children would eventually be reunited with their mother. But the aid workers were impressed at the girl’s strength and determination in bringing her sister and three brothers to safety after conflict flared between government forces and rebels in South Sudan at the end of last year.
When the fighting came to Pibor county, where they lived, their parents were away at a market. Kept together by Yayo, the children were swept along by the mass of humanity flowing out of Jonglei and into Adjumani and other districts of northern Uganda.
They walked for days, with the older children taking turns to carry two-year-old Babur when he was too exhausted to walk. Other refugees shared food with the youngsters and protected them until they reached the border crossing at Elegu, where they were picked up and taken to the Dzaipi transit centre.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 