Salva Kiir, famous SPLA rebel leader turned politician, shoots me a fairly intimidating look at his campaign commencement.

On 24 February, Salva Kiir, the Vice President of Sudan and President of the Government of Southern Sudan, launched his reelection campaign in Juba. Kiir sits and the nexus of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) and its political wing, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement. The former waged a 23-year guerrilla war against the northern Sudanese government in Khartoum. More than 2 million people perished in the conflict.

Nationwide elections are scheduled for April 2010 and will be first of their kind in Sudan since 1986.While the elections process has people excited, some fear that political competition could result in violence between factions. Southern Sudan is highly divided along tribal lines that tensions pervades the political sphere. When an opposition activist torn a photograph of Kiir, he was violently assaulted by an angry mob.

Thousands attended the event and excitement pervaded the air. Given the tense political climate in southern Sudan, security was extremely tight.

Mary Boyoi worries that a victory in Sudan’s upcoming parliamentary elections would require her to start wearing more professional attire. “It’s too hot for those clothes,” she quips. This widely renowned professional musician & activist never dreamed of working in politics. “I always expressed my political feelings with my music,” she explains outside a restaurant in Juba, southern Sudan’s bustling capitol. Much of her music focuses on political issues, including her 2007-debut album, Referendum, a reference to southern Sudan’s upcoming independence referendum scheduled for 2011.

Here, she poses for campaign photos in a Juba photo studio.

For the past eighteen months, I’ve worked with the Danish Demining Group to document and promote their global mine action and community safety programs. Many of the images I’ve shared over the last few weeks were made on assignment with DDG here in Sudan. I’ve been extremely pleased and honored to cover and learn about the mine action community during this time. Their work is vital and has an immediate impact on war-affected communities.

Pasted below is the final soundslide I constructed for DDG. It’s in black and white, which is unusual for me, but I feel that it suits the subject matter well.

A Sudanese man smokes shisha outside Mundri, a former frontline area in Western Equitoria.

I’ll have a go at the weights, I think. It’s been a while since I’ve done any strength training and there are a few hours before dinner. I recline on a bench press made from the rear seat of a Land Rover. On the rack above me rests a metal tent pole with 120 mm tank projectiles fitted on each end. I take a breath, properly space my hands, and push. The shells, although hollow, are surprisingly heavy. I exhale as I press the weight from my chest; 9, 10, 11. I rise from the bench and pick up another tent pole, this one fitted with 100 mm rounds. Bicep curls; 9, 10, 11.

This unusual gym belongs to Barry “Bazz” Jolly, a Scottish bomb disposal technician whose physique reflects the daily pushing and pulling of ordinance. He’s stationed in the remote village of Kulipapa, where he overseas the clearance of cluster sub-munitions and other unexploded ordinance. He sleeps in a tent, cooks on a burner and showers in the open. His bomb-laden gym is set up outside his tent under a large green tarp. It faces Mount Iraq, an alleged hide out of mujahadeen forces during the war here.

“The afternoons are the hardest time to pass,” Bazz says, lighting a cigarette. “Once we’ve finished at 2 pm, I read for a while, have my daily meeting with the team leaders and then, once it’s cooled off a bit, I’ll spend an hour training.” Despite the boredom, Bass is accustomed to this type of life. He spent 11 years with the British military, during which is also worked in Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD). His military service included tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In August 2003, he was wounded in an IED attack in Iraq. After the incident, he was offered an opportunity to return home, but declined. “I wanted to stay on,” he says. Less than two weeks later he was nearly killed when rioting Iraqis in Basra attacked his soft-skinned vehicle with bricks. As the driver, Bazz was unable to take cover from scores of bricks raining through his collapsed windshield. One hit him in the forehead, collapsing his skull. “It actually happened in slow motion like they people talk about,” he recalls. “Of all these hundreds of bricks, I saw the bloke toss the one that hit me. As soon as it hit me, it was as though things sped up again.”

The injury caused temporary blindness. To further complicate things, the windshield collapsed onto the gear shaft, locking it into fifth gear. “I was driving about 90 km through the city,” he says. “I knew that if I stopped, or wrecked, that we’d be in a pretty shit situation.” He managed, quite miraculously, to drive the badly damaged vehicle back to the base camp. “I got my first ride in a Blackhawk after that,” he says with a nervous laugh. The basic treatment he received was insufficient. “I still get very bad headaches,” he says. A military doctor promised him additional treatment, which has yet to materialize.

After the incident in Basra, Bazz returned to Scotland where he spent one year working as a carpenter. After 11 years of military service, he had little patience for civilian life. “I missed having a laugh with my mates in the military,” he says. “The whole 9 to 5 bit was really not for me.” With extensive experience in EOD, mine action work seemed like a natural fit. He soon arrived in war-torn southern Sudan.

The mine action community is rife with guys like Bazz. Most spent a significant portion of their adult lives in uniform and became accustomed to the lifestyle. The military-civilian transition left many feeling unfulfilled. “Being out here is like being in the military without all the shit,” he remarks. “Out here you actually have a voice regardless of your rank.” It goes without saying that it’s also without a great deal of the danger, too. While humanitarian EOD work has its inherent risks, it is rarely done amidst live combat. When executed correctly and in accordance with international safety standards, the risks are actually quite minimal.

Despite his occasional gripes about heat and boredom, it’s clear that Bazz gets a great deal of satisfaction from his job. He seems to enjoy the constant hum of the camp’s generator, the makeshift shower and the nominal possessions inside his tent. It’s clear he’s not built for the indoors. “I’m getting a full sleeve tattoo of Saint Michael,” he says, a tribute to surviving his two close calls in Iraq. “Someone asked me if I worried about future job interviews. I told him, ‘mate, I pretty sure I’ll never wear a suit and tie to work.’” As I watch him press tank shells outside of his tent, I become pretty sure, too.