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.
When a shaky peace deal ended the war southern Sudan in 2005, Mundri had been thoroughly battered. An historic stronghold of the rebel Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA), this small trading center in Western Equitoria endured daily bombing sorties by the northern air force. Many of the civilian inhabitants took refuge in neighboring areas, ceding Mundri to the warring factions.
During years of heavy fighting in 2002-2003, the northern Sudanese air force dumped payloads of cluster munitions on SPLA positions along the Yei River. Many of these cluster strikes took place during the rain season when the ground was swampy and soft. Because of the weather conditions, a great number of cluster sub-munitions, or bomblets, submerged in mud and failed to explode. Consequently, the riverbanks remain littered with these extremely dangerous items.
During the current period of relative calm, many displaced persons have returned to their homes in Mundri. As the population surges, the demand for land is rising. Returnees are eager to cultivate and developed available land, such as that along the river.
The men pictured here are members of an Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) team, assigned to clear the riverbanks of sub-munitions. Their work is grueling and dangerous. Since beginning clearance operations in October 2009, the team has uncovered and destroyed 76 cluster sub-munitions from the area. They continue to discover bomblets on a daily basis. During excavation operations this afternoon, they uncovered four more sub-munitions. The location of these discoveries requires that they expand their area of operations. They will be at it for longer than I care to think about.