As flooding becomes a yearly disaster in South Sudan, thousands survive on the edge of a canal

AYOD, South Sudan (AP) — Long-horned cattle wade through flooded lands and climb a slope along a canal that has become a refuge for displaced families in South Sudan. Smoke from burning dung rises near homes of mud and grass where thousands of people now live after floods swept away their village.

“Too much suffering,” said Bichiok Hoth Chuiny, a woman in her 70s. She supported herself with a stick as she walked in the newly established community of Pajiek in Jonglei state north of the capital, Juba.

For the first time in decades, the flooding had forced her to flee. Her efforts to protect her home by building dykes failed. Her former village of Gorwai is now a swamp.

“I had to be dragged in a canoe up to here,” Chuiny said. An AP journalist was the first to visit the community.

Such flooding is becoming a yearly disaster in South Sudan, which the World Bank has described as “the world’s most vulnerable country to climate change and also the one most lacking in coping capacity."

More than 379,000 people have been displaced by flooding this year, according to the U.N humanitarian agency.

Seasonal flooding has long been part of the lifestyle of pastoral communities around the Sudd, the largest wetlands in Africa, in the Nile River floodplain. But since the 1960s the swamp has kept growing, submerging villages, ruining farmland and killing livestock.

“The Dinka, Nuer and Murle communities of Jonglei are losing the ability to keep cattle and do farming in that region the way they used to,” said Daniel Akech Thiong, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group.

South Sudan is poorly equipped to adjust. Independent since 2011, the country plunged into civil war in 2013. Despite a peace deal in 2018, the government has failed to address numerous crises. Some 2.4 million people remain internally displaced by conflict and flooding.

The latest overflowing of the Nile has been blamed on factors including the opening of dams upstream in Uganda after Lake Victoria rose to its highest levels in five years.

The century-old Jonglei Canal, which was never completed, has become a refuge for many.

“We don’t know up to where this flooding would have pushed us if the canal was not there,” said Peter Kuach Gatchang, the paramount chief of Pajiek. He was already raising a small garden of pumpkins and eggplants in his new home.

The 340-kilometer (211-mile) Jonglei Canal was first imagined in the early 1900s by Anglo-Egyptian colonial authorities to increase the Nile’s outflow towards Egypt in the north. But its development was interrupted by the long fight of southern Sudanese against the Sudanese regime in Khartoum that eventually led to the creation of a separate country.

Gatchang said the new community in Pajiek is neglected: "We have no school and no clinic here, and if you stay for a few days, you will see us carrying our patients on stretchers up to Ayod town.”

Ayod, the county headquarters, is reached by a six-hour walk through the waist-high water.

Pajiek also has no mobile network and no government presence. The area is under the control of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-in-Opposition, founded by President Salva Kiir’s rival turned Vice President Riek Machar.

Villagers rely on aid. On a recent day, hundreds of women lined up in a nearby field to receive some from the World Food Program.

Nyabuot Reat Kuor walked home with a 50-kilogram (110-pound) bag of sorghum balanced on her head.

“This flooding has destroyed our farm, killed our livestock and displaced us for good," the mother of eight said. “Our old village of Gorwai has become a river.”

When food assistance runs out, she said, they will survive on wild leaves and water lilies from the swamp. Already in recent years, food aid rations have been cut in half as international funding for such crises drops.

More than 69,000 people who have migrated to the Jonglei Canal in Ayod county are registered for food assistance, according to WFP.

“There are no passable roads at this time of the year, and the canal is too low to support boats carrying a lot of food,” said John Kimemia, a WFP airdrop coordinator.

In the neighboring Paguong village that is surrounded by flooded lands, the health center has few supplies. Medics haven’t been paid since June due to an economic crisis that has seen civil servants nationwide go unpaid for more than a year.

South Sudan’s economic woes have deepened with the disruption of oil exports after a major pipeline was damaged in Sudan during that country's ongoing civil war.

“The last time we got drugs was in September. We mobilized the women to carry them on foot from Ayod town,” said Juong Dok Tut, a clinical officer.

Patients, mostly women and children, sat on the ground as they waited to see the doctor. Panic rippled through the group when a thin green snake passed among them. It wasn't poisonous, but many others in the area are. People who venture into the water to fish or collect water lilies are at risk.

Four life-threatening snake bites cases occurred in October, Tut said. “We managed these cases with the antivenom treatments we had, but now they’re over, so we don’t know what to do if it happens again.”

The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

An aerial view of Bor town in the capital of Jonglei state, South Sudan, Friday Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Florence Miettaux)

Reat Kuor, mother of eight children sits outside her home in Jonglei state, South Sudan, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Florence Miettaux)

South Sudanese woman carries a jerrican of water in Jonglei state, South Sudan Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Florence Miettaux)

Children pose for portrait in Jonglei state, South Sudan, Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Florence Miettaux)

Gatluok Chuol Dong, 45 years, pose for a photo in Jonglei state, South Sudan, Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Florence Miettaux)

People wait for food rations at a World Food Programme (WFP) distribution point organized by Catholic Relief Services in Jonglei state, South Sudan, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Florence Miettaux)

South Sudanese woman takes a break after receiving aid from a food distribution point in Jonglei state, South Sudan, Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Florence Miettaux)

South Sudanese women line up for food rations at a World Food Programme (WFP) distribution point organized by Catholic Relief Services in Jonglei state, South Sudan, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Florence Miettaux)

Children ride in a small canoe around the area where they live in Jonglei state, South Sudan, Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Florence Miettaux)

Patients wait to be treated at Paguong Primary Health Care Center (PHCC) in Jonglei state, South Sudan, Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Florence Miettaux)

The sun sets on the docking place in Pajiek village, in Jonglei state, South Sudan, Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Florence Miettaux)

Bichiok Hoth Chuiny, 70, who has been displaced since 2021, gestures as she sings with her friends in Jonglei state, South Sudan, Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Florence Miettaux)

People gather along a flooded area in Jonglei state, South Sudan, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Florence Miettaux)

LONDON (AP) — Hundreds of people in Ireland are calling for justice for a Congolese man who died after he was restrained by security guards outside a Dublin department store.

Activists said disturbing video of Yves Sakila in distress as he was pinned to the sidewalk was reminiscent of the killing of George Floyd by police officers in Minneapolis in 2020.

Sakila, 35, had been chased and detained May 15 by several security guards who suspected him of shoplifting at Arnotts, Ireland's oldest and largest department store, in the heart of Dublin. He was unresponsive when police arrived and was later pronounced dead at a hospital.

“Yves Sakila was a man who did not deserve to die," Suzie Tansia, of the Congolese Community Ireland, said at a demonstration Thursday. "He was a human being, like you and I. He was somebody’s son, and that could have been any one of us.”

Here are some things to know about the incident.

Attorney John Gerard Cullen, who represents the man's family, said Sakila allegedly stole a bottle of perfume from the store.

Sakila was pursued by security officers as he fled, knocking over a man in his 80s who was hospitalized with injuries, police said.

Video of the incident, described by the Irish Network Against Racism as “very disturbing," shows a man said to be Sakila struggling and crying out in distress as he was held down by several men for nearly five minutes.

As he was subdued, another man, wearing a gray suit, appears to kneel on Sakila's neck, the group said. By the end of the video, he is motionless.

“We are very concerned that this case appears to have the hallmarks of a case of excessive use of force,” said Shane O’Curry, director of the network. "The death of a Black man in such circumstances is extremely worrying, and we urge the authorities to thoroughly investigate all of the circumstances leading to this man’s death, in order to ensure minority ethnic community confidence in the criminal justice system.”

The department store said it was “deeply saddened” by Sakila's death and was conducting a review of its privately contracted security services. It said it was cooperating with police.

Prime Minister Micheál Martin called for a thorough investigation.

“My deepest sympathies go out to his family, and to the wider Congolese community,” Martin said. “I don’t want to prejudice the outcome of that investigation but I think a lot of people are clearly very concerned about what has transpired here.”

Police are investigating the death but are also the subject of an internal probe by the ombudsman into their response.

News reports said the first officers on the scene handcuffed Sakila before realizing he was unresponsive and performing CPR.

An autopsy has been completed, but police have not released the cause of death, citing operational reasons.

Cullen said Sakila's family is frustrated at the little information they have been provided.

Police have asked for witnesses to come forward.

Sakila had moved from Congo to Galway as a teen and lived in Ireland more than 20 years. He had worked in the technology industry but was homeless in recent years. Cullen said Sakila struggled with drug abuse.

Walter Kabangu, the director of the Congolese Chamber of Commerce in Ireland who went to school with Sakila, described him as a “very down-to-earth young man."

A vigil was held Tuesday outside Arnotts and hundreds of protesters peacefully gathered Thursday outside Parliament.

They held signs that said “Black lives matter here too," and shouted, “Justice for Yves, dignity for all,” and “No justice, no peace.”

Before the protest, the Black Coalition Ireland held a news conference and announced five demands: a transparent investigation of the death; racial training for police; laws against excessive force in civilian detention; an end to “demonizing rhetoric” against ethnic communities; and equal treatment for all in practice — not just on paper.

“We are demanding this because our lives matter," said Yemi Adenuga, a Meath County councilor who is a spokeswoman for the coalition. "It would be sad to see this happen again on the streets of Dublin.”

Walter Kabangu, director of the Congolese Chamber of Commerce in Ireland, taking part in a protest outside Leinster House in Dublin, Ireland, Thursday, May 21, 2026, over the death of Congolese man Yves Sakila following an incident with security guards at a Dublin department store. (Cillian Sherlock/PA via AP)