Uttley documents aid efforts in South Sudan

David Uttley has a talent for portraying the real faces behind some staggering geopolitical crises. While on assignment last week with one of the world's largest humanitarian organizations, his passion for photographing Third-world peoples nearly placed Uttley in harm's way.

On Thursday, November 10, four bombs were dropped on a refugee camp at Yida, in the newly established country of South Sudan. The government of Sudan has denied responsibility for the bombing, but international observers have noted that Sudan has been increasing its capacity for air strikes along the border with South Sudan, which achieved independence last summer.

Uttley was scheduled to be in the camp at the time of the bombing, to document the work of the non-profit humanitarian organization Samaritan's Purse (SP).

"We were actually supposed to have been there on the day it was bombed," says Uttley. Instead, due to a last-minute scheduling switch, he arrived with his SP team on the following day and wound up covering the attack's aftermath.

Incredibly, there were no casualties among the 23,000 refugees. Although one of the bombs landed directly among a group of 300 children, it did not detonate.

"It would have killed hundreds of kids," says Uttley. "It was just a miracle."

He noted that flying shrapnel also missed hitting the kids. Some of the camp's 1,500 unattended minors (kids without parents) were frightened off into the bush, but they've begun to trickle back. Otherwise, the refugees didn't appear particularly overcome by the attack, he reports: "They're kind of used to it."

The camp is made up mostly of members of the Nuba tribe who are being driven out of North Sudan by the government's ongoing air bombardment. Their exodus was foiled by the rainy season; ten weeks ago, SP found the group in Yida, stranded and starving, boiling weeds for food, and established the camp. Partnering with the United Nations' World Food Program, SP is working on the ground to distribute airlifted relief.

It's widely accepted that the Sudanese government initiated the recent attack after laying in wait for the relief helicopters to leave.

"It's a big intimidation thing - bombing while people are gathered to get food," says Uttley.

UN investigators were on site when Uttley departed South Sudan last week.

His recent trip began with an assignment in Lithuania, covering the distribution of Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes among poor schoolchildren. From Lithuania, he flew to the capital city of Juba, South Sudan, where he documented kids and adults as they received life-changing cleft-lip surgeries by SP's medical team.

Witnessing that effort had a big emotional impact on Uttley.

In America, the minor surgical fix is commonplace, he says. There's no greater incidence of the condition in Africa, but it goes unremedied.

"There's all kinds of stigmas attached to it (cleft-lip). Kids are given names that mean "unwanted,' and they're almost driven out of their villages. A lot end up being killed. They think it's some sort of witchcraft."

Often, the mother of a child with cleft-lip will leave her village, to protect her child.

"The big thing about this project is that with the poor road infrastructure, it takes days to get anywhere." SP found these patients and flew them to Juba from all over the country. "Many had never been in a vehicle, let alone in an airplane," says Uttley.

"Most have never known anyone else who had the condition, so for them to see 30 or more others like themselves in a hospital ward, interacting - it was just an amazing experience."

The son of missionary parents, Uttley spent his first years in Haiti. When he sold his Sisters-based business several years ago and began pursuing his old love of photography, he couldn't have imagined where it would take him. Looking in the rearview mirror, however, it all begins to make sense.

"Being a part of the help that's being done; transforming a child's life with a simple surgery - something we take for granted. It's exciting to be a part of projects like that. I'm loving it. Samaritan's Purse is doing great stuff, helping desperate people."

At the end of the month, Uttley will depart again for a 10-day assignment to Kenya, to cover several projects of SP's World Medical Missions.

To view more of Uttley's photos, visit the SP website at http://www.samaritanspurse.org.