There are rather a lot of weapons in South Sudan; this is what you get when you host a war for the best part of fifty years. If anyone wants an AK47, I can get you one for the going rate of $13. The government has been carrying out disarmaments recently. This is an invitation for everyone to bury all but one of their guns in the bush, and hand over the one that's left, on the basis that no one could possibly have more than one. This assumption has led to unfortunate incidents where people have been beaten up by soldiers for not handing over a gun, when they didn't have one in the first place. Last week in the town of Bor the army even disarmed the police, who are supposed to be armed, and had to re-arm them after a hasty phone call.
There are lots of land mines and UXOs (unexploded ordnance) on the Jebel, the rather pretty hill on the outskirts of Juba that people climb when they can't think of anything better to do with their sunday. This is not because mines were planted there during the war. In fact, a couple of years ago the government gathered all the mines and UXO they could find around Juba and put it in a pile on the Jebel. They then tossed on a lot of sticks of dynamite, hoping that a controlled explosion would be the result. What actually happened was that several tons of explosives were blown into the air, and rained down all over the mountain. A de-miner actually lost a leg, not because he trod on a mine but because a mine fell from the sky onto his leg. It didn't even explode. Anyway, hikers on the Jebel would be well advised to take a companion and follow in their footsteps a few paces behind, ready to turn back in case the companion suddenly travels a long way in a vertical direction.
There are lots of land mines and UXOs (unexploded ordnance) on the Jebel, the rather pretty hill on the outskirts of Juba that people climb when they can't think of anything better to do with their sunday. This is not because mines were planted there during the war. In fact, a couple of years ago the government gathered all the mines and UXO they could find around Juba and put it in a pile on the Jebel. They then tossed on a lot of sticks of dynamite, hoping that a controlled explosion would be the result. What actually happened was that several tons of explosives were blown into the air, and rained down all over the mountain. A de-miner actually lost a leg, not because he trod on a mine but because a mine fell from the sky onto his leg. It didn't even explode. Anyway, hikers on the Jebel would be well advised to take a companion and follow in their footsteps a few paces behind, ready to turn back in case the companion suddenly travels a long way in a vertical direction.
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