Keeping the Peace in South Sudan Army: Behind the New Frontlines

This programme contains some strong language and scenes which some viewers may find upsetting

The British Army in 2017 finds itself in uncharted territory.

They've not been at war for three years.

Now move!

After controversial campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan,

there's a political reluctance to put boots on the ground.

Don't bomb Syria!

There's also widespread opposition to military intervention.

Don't bomb Syria!

The Army's budgets are under increasing pressure.

They could go and manoeuvre, without firing ammunition,

it saves you two million of the 3.8 million that you hope to save.

The British Army is smaller than it's been, probably,

since Cromwell's day,

and I would want to look myself very closely in the mirror if I felt that

there was a risk of the Army being sent to do something that it wasn't

properly prepared to do.

But now, with the rise of the so-called Islamic State...

..the threat of a new Cold War in Eastern Europe...

-Wait!

-In the field!

..and famine and conflict in sub-Saharan Africa,

the British Army have to play a new role in a deeply unstable world.

How many patients do you usually see a day?

700 to 800.

Filmed over 18 months,

this series takes us into the heart of the British Army...

How many Russians are across the border?

-100,000-odd?

-Yeah, a lot.

..through the eyes of the rank and file...

No-one else has operated in the stadium before.

This is completely different from Afghanistan.

And Iraq.

..and the leaders...

General!

-How are you?

-Nice to see you.

..we see the challenges of fighting wars when we're not at war.

Days of going out, finding groups such as Isis,

for reasons above our pay grade,

that doesn't happen any more.

In this episode, the British Army is deployed to one of the most dangerous places in the world...

Full barrelled long rocket system.

..on a UN peacekeeping operation to protect thousands

fleeing South Sudan's Civil War.

It has been known for young Dinka soldiers to try and sneak in.

The danger then is that the conflict would start in the POC camp.

Rape is frequently used as a weapon.

The sense of right and wrong is skewed absolutely the wrong way.

In a country where government troops can be lawless and corrupt...

Here you go. We've been stopped now. This is SBA.

..can the British Army help build peace, and stop genocide?

In a matter of weeks,

400 British soldiers will join a UN peacekeeping operation

in South Sudan,

a country torn apart by civil war.

Just along this wall here.

Escaping war and famine, thousands of civilians in South Sudan

have sought sanctuary at UN camps.

Today, 100 actors will test if the British soldiers

will be ready to deal with civilians in need of protection.

Who is in charge here?

Let me talk to who is in charge.

ALL TALK AT ONCE

Come, brother. Come, brother.

THEY SHOUT

We want food! We want food! We want food! We want food!

A lot of what we focus on is the worst-case scenario.

Prepping our guys so that if everything goes wrong,

they can still react effectively.

There was plenty that we didn't search, no-one came through carrying anything suspicious.

We are now getting noise on them from this building there.

I just want to identify the people inside.

SHOUTING

This is the type of training that makes sure that if we do have to

protect civilians from an enemy force,

we're confident that we can do so.

Just let them in.

Just let them in. Let's get them in. Come on.

The really great thing about this exercise is that all of the actors

playing the civilian population are actually from South Sudan,

so they've been able to feed in a lot of information to us.

One of the stories that was particularly pertinent,

and really stuck with our guys, was one of a father and a son.

They were approaching a checkpoint in South Sudan,

and unfortunately they didn't have anything to give to the checkpoint,

so no money, no cigarettes, no water or food.

The checkpoint opened fire on them both,

because they had nothing to give,

and unfortunately, his father was killed.

These people have grown up in conflict,

and for us to go out and, you know,

go some way to resolving that is a really great thing for us to do.

South Sudan is the world's newest country.

It gained independence from Sudan in 2011,

but quickly descended into civil war

as rebels from the Nuer tribe tried to overthrow government forces from

the Dinka tribe, known as the SPLA.

50,000 people have been killed,

and over three million forced to flee their homes.

So, that is the doctrinal side of it...

This will be the British Army's first humanitarian peacekeeping mission

since the day the UN were unable to stop the massacres in Bosnia in the 1990s.

Stability will only be achieved in South Sudan

if the fledgling state

is able to stand on its own two feet.

Personal security's a real issue,

whether that's sexual violence

or attacks between various tribal elements.

Providing security for the population is key.

Violence can break out, we could have a major natural disaster,

inflows of refugees, economic downturns,

contests for the transition of power.

I'd suggest we've got most of those going on in South Sudan.

So, they are all eating away at the stability of the state.

The UN's role in South Sudan is to provide humanitarian aid,

broker peace, and protect civilians escaping the war.

14,000 UN soldiers and police currently guard 210,000 civilians,

who have sought sanctuary in eight POCs -

protection of civilian camps -

and try to patrol the wider country.

Just have a look at Winston Churchill's view of the United Nations.

So nobody is saying that the UN is going to be able to solve

all of those problems. There are many challenges.

But it's about, through your mission, supporting in every way you can.

Thank you for coming to speak to us today.

It's been tremendously informative.

Lieutenant Colonel Jason Ainley will be the commanding officer of the British Army and South Sudan.

Rape is frequently used as a weapon over there.

I think women are very vulnerable. We hear horrible stories of women

leaving the protection of civilian sites to go and get firewood,

and soldiers capturing them and raping them.

The sense of right and wrong is skewed absolutely the wrong way.

This is a very different mission for the British Army.

They must take orders from the UN, who can only operate

with the consent of the two warring factions in South Sudan.

The British contingent of engineers,

medics and infantrymen will be deployed to bolster security

and infrastructure at two of the biggest POC camps.

Around that camp they need to protect these civilians,

so they need fencing, they need watchtowers.

They need roads to be able to move supplies,

they need helicopter landing pads to get more supplies in,

and that's where we come in,

because we provide that engineering support to either repair

that infrastructure or actually put it in place.

One detachment of 190 British soldiers have been posted to Malakal,

in the north-east of the country.

The area has been subject to fierce fighting,

as government SPLA troops and Dinka militia tried to wrestle control of

the oil-rich region from the Nuer tribe.

Malakal has changed hands 12 times in the last three years.

Government SPLA soldiers now control the city.

For 30,000 civilians from the Nuer tribe, aligned to the rebels,

and another local tribe, the Shilluk,

who have been caught in the crossfire, the camp is their only safe haven.

First and foremost, we are here for the protection of civilians.

We're not here to take sides.

If there's any threat, then... we're here to react to that.

25-year-old rifleman Sam Warner is one of 30 British soldiers manning the watchtower

in the British sector of the UN base.

Over there, you can see the children playing football.

To the right is the POC camp itself.

It dominates the ground to that side.

You can see here, Juliet Gate, where the locals come in and out

if they're gathering food and working in the fields,

and in front you've got the road as you go from the gate to the POC camp.

There is an RPG warhead that was dropped just outside.

Potentially, someone was trying to smuggle it in

and got cold feet at the last minute and ditched it at the gate.

Maintaining security here is fraught with problems.

The SPLA claim the POC is harbouring Nuer rebels.

The UN must stop SPLA soldiers and Dinka militia entering the POC

and launching attacks.

At the same time,

they must also prevent the Nuer rebels using the POC as a base.

Spotting who is a civilian and who is a combatant is not easy.

It has been known for the Dinka soldiers,

the Government forces, to try and sneak into the POC camp.

The danger then is that the conflict would start in the POC camp.

Which is obviously not what we want at all.

We're here in case it did happen, we're here to stop that.

With the SPLA controlling the surrounding area,

the UN estimate life expectancy for Nuer and Shilluk men

who leave the POC is just 30 minutes.

We were told that there was a potential security threat

to the fighting-age males. They could be mistaken for a combatant,

so the vast majority of human traffic that goes in and out

is either very old men, or predominantly women.

100 UN troops from Ethiopia,

Rwanda and India man the perimeter gates

and enforce security inside the POC,

which stretches across two square miles.

When you look at the size of the POC camp,

it's quite surprising just how many people there are.

You're told about it, in our briefs, about, you know, what to expect,

but it is quite a shock when you first get here.

You good?

Good?

What, mate?

-What is your name?

-My name?

-Sam.

-Sam.

-What's your name?

-My name is Seamus.

Good.

-You have some money?

-Give you money?

-Yes.

-I haven't got any money, mate!

When you have a hard time, it doesn't really bear thinking about, sort of...

Britannia, yeah. You actually try and understand,

it gives you a better rapport with the locals.

You try and sort of see things from their side of things.

I don't think you really can fully understand,

it's a completely different world.

-Picture?

-No, no, no.

To protect me, and to protect you.

Just 11 months before the British arrived,

UN guards failed to defend Malakal.

100 SPLA soldiers breached the camp's perimeter.

They killed 13 Nuer and Shilluk civilians, and two aid workers.

They burnt down a third of the POC.

Hundreds were crushed in the stampede to escape.

The UN was criticised for failing to act.

Essentially if there's a threat to human life, we'd react

and get rid of that threat,

and, if necessary, as a last resort, by means of lethal force.

The UN base at Malakal is in desperate need of improvements to its infrastructure.

British engineers are undertaking major renovations to expand the camp

and enable more UN troops to be deployed to the region,

and increase security for the civilians here.

So just go for five big ones.

From there to there.

-It's going to go under them?

-The first layer's going under.

They are building watchtowers, security fences and gates.

There's still a little bit of pipework to do here but it's not a massive amount.

Lieutenant Colonel Jason Ainley is overseeing the construction.

We've got the civilians just behind us,

over 30,000 civilians.

Sometimes you can see them poking their heads up behind the perimeter,

because they're just curious about what we do.

I've got very young children, too. When I see the young children

going around the POC site it always makes me think of my children.

At one point we nearly built walls that were slightly higher than that,

but our previous experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan

were not exactly applicable here.

What we really need to do is tune into the environment.

That's what we did. So we lowered our wall,

so we didn't create Fortress Britannia in a United Nations base.

Food and medical aid inside the POC is provided by hundreds of UN aid agency staff.

British engineers are supporting them by building access roads

and helicopter landing pads so aid can be shipped in.

We can do our best to create an environment where aid can get to those who need it.

But there is disease - malaria, cholera, typhoid.

Many within the UN would say this is the most challenging peacekeeping operation

currently undertaken by the United Nations,

and I can see exactly why.

The situation's dire.

It's tragic. It's utterly tragic.

Another 160 British soldiers have been deployed 120 miles south-east of Malakal in Bentiu.

The area was once a stronghold for rebel forces from the Nuer tribe.

In 2014 they massacred more than 300 people they suspected of being government supporters.

When SPLA troops recaptured Bentiu,

thousands of Nuers sought refuge in a UN camp, fearing reprisals.

The camp has now trebled in size,

making it the second-largest city in South Sudan.

Just 1,200 UN peacekeepers protect 120,000 civilians here.

Security is tight.

The Nuer fear they will be targeted by the SPLA if they leave.

In a secure compound on the edge of the camp,

British engineers have been tasked to build a field hospital for UN soldiers and staff here.

Skip, floats on the draft.

Get lifted up. Put it into the centre, stood upright.

Let's get the bag off.

One, two, three.

Push, push, push.

At the moment there is no proper medical facilities here.

If someone is shot, they have to be evacuated by air to the capital,

Juba, 600 miles away.

We've put up the outer frames.

We can use it to... Yeah, take that one off, please.

It means UN soldiers in Bentiu have to limit their patrols

outside the PLC, and other member states are reluctant to send troops.

Can you strip that doorframe there, ready for a corridor, please?

Army medic Sergeant Michael Owen

is playing a lead role in the construction.

We've still got another Drash to go here,

which will give us our laboratory and microbiology in that area there.

And then we've still got a little bit to go down here, as well.

Another tent down there for our troop, in case they have to go anywhere.

They'll be stationed there, as well.

One, two, three.

Step. Step to the right.

He joined the Army when he was 16.

Just before I turned ten, my mum passed away with cancer.

After that I realised I wanted to help people.

I kind of wanted to do medicine, something with the military,

and that kind of just took me towards being a medic in the Army.

What's the point of moving that?

We could do that by hand without lifting it.

When up and running, the hospital will contain an intensive care unit,

an operating theatre,

several wards, and will be staffed by 80 British medics.

Sergeant Owen has just two weeks to get everything ready.

Everyone's hot, everyone's bothered.

Especially during the day, it's very hot.

You can't really escape the heat that well,

so everyone's quite stressed on trying to meet the goal, as well.

The 120,000 refugees inside the camp

are treated in a hospital run by the NGO, Medecins Sans Frontieres.

Lieutenant Colonel Simon Horne is one of the lead consultants for the British Army.

I think everybody's wanted at some point to hop the fence and go

and do some medicine for the people who clearly need it over there,

But one of our strengths and weaknesses in a facility like this

is that we're very highly capable, but our capacity's tiny,

and so we could help the person in front of us,

but we couldn't help the person behind them.

We can't look after everybody in South Sudan.

That's not our job.

But also, there are lots of other people here who can.

The NGOs are all here to do that,

and they're doing it very well.

What they need is the confidence that its personnel are being

looked after to an adequate level, and that's what we provide.

The hope is that the hospital will encourage other nations to commit more troops to Bentiu.

With a larger protection zone,

the Nuer may feel safe enough to leave the PLC and return home.

Across the country just 14,000 UN soldiers and police

must try to protect a population of over 12 million living outside the POCs.

They are thinly spread across 18 bases in a country the same size as France.

Vast areas are not patrolled by the UN.

They remain unmonitored and exposed to violence.

The SPLA are still fighting Nuer rebels just 60 miles from Bentiu.

And famine has been declared in the wider state,

forcing more Nuer to arrive at the POC.

25-year-old Lieutenant Gavin Knox is in charge of force security for the British Army here.

Today, he is receiving a briefing about the fighting and the tactics the SPLA use.

So, just a brief situation up there,

I'm not going to smash you with this.

This is just so you guys can be kept up to date with what exactly's going on.

The SPLA, the government, have a brigade in almost every county.

The anti-government forces are massively outmatched in terms of manpower, equipment and supplies.

So I've got a couple of videos to show you now

of them actually at work,

and you can just see they've got very poor control of fire,

they don't really use cover,

and when you see them actually firing weapons systems

you can see it's nowhere near to our levels of marksmanship.

As you saw there were guys pointing their weapons in the air,

looking confused. The firing you saw was from the hip.

No real sort of control of fire or discipline at all.

In terms of their structure, they've got a lot of junior officers,

including some of them who have actually been trained by us

at Sandhurst, but down at the fighting units,

as you can see, it's more or less chaos.

It is just pick up your weapons system and run around.

They still think it's OK to take a village,

to commit some sort of abuses of power and authority,

which we do see a lot of, and that includes taking as much food,

money and equipment as they can carry.

That's the SPLA fighting.

It's important to remember that those rebels, the anti-government forces,

a lot of them are former SPLA who defected,

so from this we can apply the same sort of thinking to how the rebels fight.

In terms of armour, it's a ZPU 4.

It can put up to 150 rounds a minute into the air,

with a range out to 2km.

Previously we have seen one UN helicopter be shot down in South Sudan.

What that means for us is it can absolutely threaten our air supply routes

as well as any other air supply routes.

Again similar ranges...

83 aid workers and 13 UN peacekeepers have been killed in the war.

The British Army can only use force to protect themselves

and the civilians if they come under direct attack.

Today, Lieutenant Knox and ten of his force protection team

are going to check on the security situation in Bentiu town centre.

If we just looked at things that were within our camp,

we'd have a very limited knowledge of actually, what are the government

forces doing? What are the forces in opposition doing?

Even getting out to Bentiu and Rubkona allows us to have that wider understanding

and pre-empt anything that may or may not be coming our way.

We'll be going through Rubkona itself.

Rubkona is very, very busy.

There is the divisional headquarters of the SPLA,

so expect to see a lot of SPLA troops, a lot of activity,

and also a lot of civilians around that area.

If we do come under any small-arms fire,

just conduct the vehicle contact roles as you've been taught,

so more than likely, provided that one of the vehicles isn't disabled,

we'll just be driving straight through that contact, OK?

UN patrols outside the POC camps are frequently curtailed by the SPLA.

They don't want the UN to interfere in their operations.

Slow right down, slow right down.

Pull over.

SPLA vehicle in the middle of our convoy.

Four barrel long rocket system.

We've seen them quite a few times.

I don't know...

I don't know whether they use them for intimidation

or whether they just use them as troop-carry vehicles.

I'm not sure. We've seen a few, though.

When we turn right here, you'll see the T55 on your left-hand side.

Well, directly behind you guys you see it.

So this is Bentiu itself.

These are what were the suburbs and stuff like that.

It's a bit like London!

Yo!

Hello. 12-year-old with an AK-47.

Fuck...

Over 17,000 children have been recruited to fight in the war.

These children are, you know, they're the next generation of South Sudan.

To think that they've already been warped at such an early age, you know, 11, 12,

by the conflict in such a direct manner, is certainly a disturbing thought.

If you could keep yourself plus two here to look after the vehicles,

along with the team...

-How are you?

-I'm good, thank you.

-How are you?

-Yes.

-Good.

And you all right?

-Where are you going?

-Here.

Here.

The Nuer have left the town for the safety of the POC.

Only civilians from the Dinka remain.

Bentiu is somewhere that you can look at and the mark of conflict

is pretty much everywhere you look, unfortunately.

Just to the right, over there, you've got the remnants of the university.

Bentiu, as far as I'm aware,

according to the local people, was a thriving university town.

So, as you can see, there is a remnant of a society here that was actually getting on quite well.

Since the conflict,

everything that isn't necessary for survival unfortunately has been left

and you can see where, you know, walls are turning to rubble.

You're probably not going to see Athlectico Bentiu playing here any time soon.

In 2014, in Bentiu town centre,

Nuer rebels carried out the worst massacre in South Sudan's ongoing civil war.

The victims of what the United Nations' mission in South Sudan is calling an ethnic massacre.

Anti-Government forces entered the mosque,

separated ethnic groups and escorted them to safety,

while the others were killed.

The sight of bodies piled on streets as well as in mosques has outraged the international community.

The United States strongly condemns the recent targeted killings last week of hundreds of civilians

in Bentiu based on their ethnicity and nationality.

Thousands fled here to the safety of a UN compound, when which tribe you

were from suddenly became a question of life or death.

At the time, the UN did not have enough soldiers to stop the rebels,

who hunted down Dinka civilians over two days, killing 300 men,

women and children.

How are you doing?

How are you doing?

Hello. How are you doing?

The UN must now continue to build trust here.

The UN's been criticised in the past for not acting as strongly as it

maybe could have done in a situation in order to prevent something pretty

seriously bad from happening,

and absolutely that's something that the UK

does not want to be criticised of.

In Bentui, a lot of the scars are still very,

very fresh there and haven't had time to heal at all.

The daily struggle of the people here to simply survive on what little they have is, you know,

it's quite a lot to take in sometimes.

At Malakal, supplies of UN food and medical aid can reach critically low levels.

UN convoys travelling by road are increasingly being attacked

and looted.

-Got water?

-Got water.

-Right, cool.

-Right.

Yep, let's shut this up.

Logistics-wise, we're in the middle of nowhere, really.

When the rainy season occurs,

getting here is a nightmare because there's no roads,

so that limits it down to air or water,

so a lot of the vital supplies for the people in this place

rely on the, er, jetty.

Engineer Sergeant Cunliffe is helping the UN to build a jetty along the Nile,

in an attempt to establish a more reliable supply route.

Hello, lads, how are you doing? All right?

Leaving the base comes with risk.

South Sudan is one of the world's poorest countries.

Corruption is rife and UN staff frequently become targets of extortion.

One day, I was along this road,

I was escorting the new LEC - so the Locally Employed Contractor,

or civilian - to the water point.

And, er, we drove along this road.

He had a brand-new governmental vehicle.

So we got stopped by the SPLA at the checkpoint here,

and they were just, er...

They just wanted that vehicle, basically.

First of all, they said, er,

"This is not a UN vehicle."

And I said, "Oh, yes, it is, UN vehicle."

And he goes, "No, no, it's governmental."

So, er, I wasn't going to argue with them.

There was ten of them.

Yeah. So, unfortunately, they took the vehicle.

They took the civilian driver, as well.

It was a bit... It was a bit scary.

Here we go. We're being stopped now.

This is SPLA.

An SPLA soldier spots our camera.

Despite having approved government permits, the SPLA soldier demands money.

After payment is refused, an uneasy stand-off lasts over 30 minutes.

We are eventually escorted to the jetty...

..with the SPLA in tow.

UN staff frequently face threats of intimidation and extortion from the SPLA.

There is little they can do,

as they must maintain the permission of the government to operate here.

This is the entrance to the jetty.

-OK.

-OK? Cheers.

Thank you, sir. Cheers.

For Sergeant Cunliffe,

it comes with the territory of operating in a war zone.

When I was in Iraq, I can remember driving my Land Rover

and, er, there was about 100 people on top of this bridge.

And, er, I went under this bridge - there was no other way to go -

and I got bricked, bricked and stoned.

I lost two front teeth, fractured eye socket, 70 stitches,

I got knocked out unconscious, as well.

Then they sent me to Birmingham Hospital.

Believe it or not, three weeks after being back in the UK,

I was back out there. I felt I had unfinished business there.

I didn't want to let the lads down. I wanted to be with the lads.

Amazing. How many people can say they've worked by the Nile?

The British Army is helping the UN build a permanent port here so large containers of aid can be shipped in.

It's a massive job. So every nation and the POCs,

they all rely on this jetty for, you know, sources of food to come in,

materials to build.

You know, by doing all this, the logistics-wise of it,

we're helping people that are a lot less fortunate than us.

And, er, the longer we stay here, the more we'll benefit these poor people.

The port will take months to build.

Before construction can begin,

Sergeant Cunliffe and Sapper Stuart Whittaker take soil samples to see if the ground is stable enough

to support what will be a major build.

There's local earth, so we're going to get a sample out so we can fully classify it.

It's going down quite nice, isn't it?

Yeah. It's not very good for building, to be honest.

It's a very stiff clay.

This is the first time that myself and Stuart have worked on the rig together.

-Oh!

-That'll go down well nice.

Yeah. A nice bath, as well, that'd be nice.

Guys, two tables for ITU!

In Bentiu, British medics and engineers have made rapid progress

in the construction of the hospital in the last week.

It's just to test that is...

That you can get down there.

Today, all the equipment is finally going in.

At the moment, we're just putting tables, chairs, stalls,

benches and things like that.

Once, er, labs and micro are built,

that is effectively the main hospital facility complete.

Toilets need to be put into place.

The water needs, you know,

make sure we've got a decent water supply, the electrics are working,

the aircon's working and all the power's working.

You know, it's going to be a long day, but it's going to be a good day, hopefully.

For Sergeant Owen, the hospital construction has been a personal test of his character.

He spent 18 months on medical leave after his last overseas operation.

My last tour of Afghan in 2009, I was injured in an IED blast.

Myself and the vehicle commander, we were both injured at the time.

He sort of was very badly injured.

At the time, I'd broken my leg, my left leg, in a few places,

completely destroyed my right elbow.

Erm... So that was a very, very challenging moment for me.

Especially as a medic, to be that injured while there was another patient

who was a lot more sicker than me, erm,

and I couldn't do anything at the time.

And this deployment was just to show that, you know,

however bad times have been, you can still do your job just that one more time. So, yeah.

With the hospital close to completion and resources freed up,

Lieutenant Knox wants to see if the British Army can do more to support civilians outside the POC camp.

Apparently, this bridge was built in the late-'90s by Osama bin Laden.

We've got a great deal of expertise within the British contingent here.

We've got medics, doctors, we have engineers.

The next step is to start looking outside of the POC,

to start looking at the services communities run on - schools,

universities, basic medical care.

It's about jump-starting those resources

so that when people leave the POC site,

they're not left with cities that look like Bentiu does at the minute.

Just two people out guarding each vehicle at one time, OK?

-Yeah.

-That's all we need, all right? Don't put anyone up on the stairs or anything like that, OK?

The UN and State Governor have given Lieutenant Knox special permission to visit the local hospital.

So you're just happy to show us

exactly, you know, what you require here

and what you think would be good

for the UN to supply you to get this hospital back up to, you know,

the capacity that you were running at before the conflict.

Director Dr Rassiban

has worked here for over five years.

What are the main diseases and things that you treat here?

Right.

Yeah.

OK.

-Typhoid?

-Yeah, typhoid fever cases.

There's a lot of people in here.

-Yeah, a lot of people.

-I mean, it's...

It's only 10.30 in the morning and already you're very full.

How many patients do you usually see a day?

Wow.

OK.

And that's between, what, 47 staff, did you say?

-Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

-OK.

-Yeah.

OK.

So you can... You can test for malaria, but treating for it is difficult?

-Yeah, yeah, yeah.

-You just don't have the...

The hospital has been repeatedly looted.

In 2014, 33 patients and staff were executed here,

forcing many of the staff to flee.

How are you doing? Lieutenant Gavin Knox.

How are you doing?

We're, erm... We're just doing a bit of a look round the hospital to see

what, you know, quick projects the UN might be able to do here to help you guys.

Right.

So you need the... You need the rooms renovating first and then the beds to...

The war has pushed South Sudan's health-care system to crisis point.

The country has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the world.

Over 10% of children die before the age of five.

It's almost awe-inspiring that these people can work in such

poor conditions and yet achieve so much, with so little.

I think that that is, you know,

one of the places where UN could have a huge impact.

If we're able to just give them that little bit extra, you know -

the electricity connected into one of their wards,

the air conditioning put back into one of their operating theatres,

clean out a room, tidy up the outside,

mend their fencing so that people aren't stealing their pharmaceutical

supplies - we could have a huge impact.

Lieutenant Knox must now wait for approval from the UN and the South Sudanese Government

before any British medics or engineers can help the local hospital.

At the camp, the British medics have finished building the hospital for the UN.

From our right side here,

we've got our X-ray department with CereTom.

That's a CT scanner for just the head.

Er, we then come up this way.

So depending on the severity of the patient,

we go left or right. If you go right, it's our surgical team,

which will be two surgical bays in here with CSSD,

where they can sterilise their instruments at the back.

Through to this way,

we've got ITU.

So our sick patients, or patients post-surgery,

or poorly patients can come in here and be closely monitored.

Through to the top, up here on the right, we've got our labs.

So in here will be fridges,

freezer with blood and other products and that,

and we'll also be able to test blood samples and other specimen samples.

Through to the back there, they've got the microbiology.

So in there, there's going to be lots of powerful microscopes and things like that.

-Hello, my dear, how are you?

-Good afternoon.

-Good afternoon.

-Fine. See you tomorrow.

Yep.

Yeah, of course.

-It's good?

-Yeah, it's good.

-Good.

-It's good. All good.

Happy, happy?

Happy. Very happy.

-Are you happy?

-Happy.

Good, good.

Mm, pretty happy with it. It'll do.

Hopefully, it'll survive its first storm, so that...

That's the next big one.

For Sergeant Owen, the success of the hospital build has its contradictions.

It's a very, very difficult situation for all of us,

especially all the medical. We'd love to be able to open up and help everybody,

knowing that there are poorly people and the way the locals live.

It is always at the back of the head but, sometimes,

that's just where you've got to leave it.

You know, we're here to do a job.

The job is to build the hospital,

to allow the UN to go out and do the other tasks then to make those people's lives better.

Lieutenant Knox has been told his request to help the hospital in Bentiu town centre

has been passed up the UN chain of command and a decision could take months.

Of course it's frustrating.

Um, you know, whenever we can't do anything immediately as the British Army,

it's very frustrating to us because that's how we operate.

You've got to understand that this is a very new environment for us.

We are starting to understand how things work here, and once we do,

the frustrations will go and things may even happen a bit quicker.

Whoa!

Rainy season has hit Malakal.

UN helicopters carrying vital medical supplies are struggling to land.

Have a step on this.

So it's been tied over there, but this is still soft and squidgy,

-and you can see...

-Oh, right, yeah.

There we go. There's the mud, under there.

So, if they take off at half eight and don't land until half four,

you've got that time frame.

British engineers have just five hours to do emergency repairs.

That's one.

Sergeant Cunliffe and Sapper Whittaker are brought in to help.

Say it's heavy rain or a thunderstorm, you don't

want to land in this, get bogged in and get stuck.

Or even just any kind of little tip on a helicopter would just send it off one way.

It could damage the helicopter.

They're not cheap. They're not cheap at all.

And not just that, it's a vital means of getting materials and food

sources in to the, er, poor people in the POC.

Food goes down, water goes down, supplies go down.

They then suffer even more, which is unnecessary,

just because a helicopter went down because it landed on a naff site.

These drains that we dug before...

-Yes.

-Now they've been tested...

-Yes.

-..by the rain, have they worked?

Lieutenant Colonel Jason Ainley is worried the heavy rains

could leave the British Army isolated and exposed.

One key concern to us is improving the road.

When it rains, it's quite treacherous,

so we worry a little bit about our escape routes.

It doesn't take very long to turn this place into a proper swamp.

The pipes are in under there, but it requires kind of local titivation.

When we get into the guts of the rain season, that could become a real...

Oh, no, no. Definitely.

I mean, worst-case scenario would be putting our high-priority vehicles

parked up along the road, just so we can get them out.

We need to start putting vehicles that we need to move quickly,

or that we need access to through the rain, on first.

-Yeah.

-No, thanks very much for that, Pete.

-That's OK.

I think that's it done.

The engineers finish their repairs just in time.

The British Army has made significant improvements at Malakal,

but as the UN increase infrastructure and aid at the POCs,

they can create a culture of dependency.

It's a vicious circle the UN wants to try and break.

We need to look at, um, ideas about,

how do we support people to return to their places of origin?

That's a key aspect.

The POC site is temporary and, yes, it's been long...

-Yeah.

-It's been three and a half years.

-But now we need to look, what are the security that the people in the POC need to address?

-Yeah.

With the government. And in relation to that...

Lieutenant Colonel Jason Ainley is meeting with the UN head of the Malakal camp,

Namibian lawyer Hazel Dewet.

The UN is now trying to broker a peace deal so the Nuer here feel safe enough to leave.

The government says they want peace,

and so we've been talking to all the security organs - the SPLA, the SSP,

South Sudan Police Force.

The government has been very clear that they would want for them to come out,

but the POC community need to feel that they have a level of security.

Are we still seeing, you know,

Dinkas being moved back into Malakal from Juba?

Yes, that's still...

That's still happening. That is a government policy and approach.

I'm working with government.

We need to look at what I call a menu of options.

-Thanks very much for your time.

-Nice to meet you...

Lieutenant Colonel Ainley fears the government's strategy to repopulate

Malakal slowly with Dinkas will undermine the UN's efforts.

Bringing Dinka in to populate the town doesn't chime right with me,

in terms of the long-term prospects for this area.

There's also a lot of Shilluk and Nuer people inside this POC camp

that clearly don't quite feel safe yet to go back to living outside of the camp.

It is really hard to see a solution in the short term to this

country because, at the moment, there is still divisions.

You can't ignore that.

The 30,000 in the POC camp don't trust the government.

They are scared to leave and cannot support themselves.

In the four weeks that rifleman Sam Warner has been in Malakal,

he has not dealt with any outbreaks of violence.

We had a child today, erm, with a toy pistol.

It looked quite realistic.

I think once he realised that we thought it was maybe real,

he dropped it and off he went.

Erm...

He didn't mean any harm, he was just a normal kid, just running about.

I think they like us being here.

I think they like knowing that if something was to happen,

that we are here to react.

So if anything was to happen that, you know, as best as possible,

they are going to be looked after and they are going to be protected.

Have you been learning? Have you been to school?

Lieutenant Knox believes it will take decades for the country to heal.

It's actually quite interesting coming to South Sudan,

being based in Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland is obviously a place that, again, has had a very,

very troubled past but, today,

when you're walking around Northern Ireland,

it's just like being anywhere else in the UK.

I'm hoping that in the same sort of time frame,

the people of South Sudan can mend, you know,

the wounds that have been caused by this conflict and work together

to create a self-sustaining and working government.

The British Army have not fired a shot to protect the civilians

in the first five months of their deployment,

but they will be here for another three years.

I don't think we encountered the same threats that we prepared for.

But you only have to study South Sudan for half an hour to realise that most of the crises

that have happened here have happened at a moment's notice.

It goes very bad very quickly.

Ultimately, the government of South Sudan is responsible for providing

security and protection to its own people.

But I don't think there is yet anybody that can unite all sides.

The international community has given £4 billion in aid to South Sudan,

but the country still remains in the midst of a humanitarian crisis.