[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 16580-16581]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      A MAN ON THE GROUND IN SUDAN

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. FRANK R. WOLF

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, November 2, 2011

  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I submit New York Times columnist Nicholas 
Kristof's recent piece highlighting the courageous work of Ryan Boyette 
in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan.
  I had the privilege of meeting with Ryan when he was recently in 
town. At a time when few outside groups or media have access to the 
region, he has been an eye-witness to some of the atrocities presently 
occurring in that country.
  Ryan has issued a compelling clarion call to action. Will we answer 
the call?

                [From the New York Times, Oct. 22, 2011]

                       The Man Who Stayed Behind

                        (By Nicholas D. Kristof)

       In the last few months, as you and I have been fretting 
     about the economy or moaning about the weather, Ryan Boyette 
     has been living in a mud-wall hut and dodging bombs in his 
     underwear.
       Some humanitarian catastrophes--Congo, Somalia, Sudan--
     linger because the killing unfolds without witnesses. So 
     Ryan, a 30-year-old from Florida, has made the perilous 
     decision to bear witness to atrocities in the Nuba Mountains 
     of Sudan, secretly staying behind when other foreigners were 
     evacuated.
       I met Ryan a few years ago in Sudan, and even then he was a 
     compelling figure who spoke the local languages of Otoro and 
     Sudanese Arabic. An evangelical Christian deeply motivated by 
     his faith, Ryan moved to the Nuba Mountains in 2003 and 
     worked for Samaritan's Purse, an aid group led by the Rev. 
     Franklin Graham.
       Early this year, Ryan married a local woman, Jazira, a 
     health worker--and 6,000 joyous Nubans celebrated at the 
     wedding, along with Ryan's parents, who flew in from Florida.
       It was clear that war was brewing in the Nuba Mountains. 
     The region had sided with South Sudan in the country's long 
     civil war, but now South Sudan was separating while the Nuba 
     Mountains would remain in the north. The people--mostly 
     Muslim but with a large Christian minority--supported a local 
     rebel army left over from the civil war.
       In June, fighting erupted. The Sudanese government moved in 
     to destroy the rebel army and depopulate areas that supported 
     it. Aid organizations pulled out their workers. Ryan decided 
     that he could not flee, so when Samaritan's Purse ordered him 
     to evacuate, he resigned and stayed behind.
       ``A lot of people tried to convince me to leave,'' Ryan 
     remembers. ``But this is where my wife is from, this is where 
     I've lived for eight years. It's hard to get on a plane and 
     say, `Bye, I hope to see you when this ends.'''
       Ryan organized a network of 15 people to gather information 
     and take photos and videos, documenting atrocities. He used a 
     solar-powered laptop and a satellite phone to transmit them 
     to the West, typically to the Enough Project, a Washington-
     based anti-genocide organization. He also supplied eyewitness 
     interviews that helped the Enough Project and the Harvard 
     Humanitarian Initiative find evidence of atrocities, 
     including eight mass graves, on satellite images. And he 
     helped journalists understand what was going on.

[[Page 16581]]

       ``He's irreplaceable,'' said Jonathan Hutson of the Enough 
     Project. ``There's no substitute for someone on the ground.''
       Ryan tried to keep his presence in the region a secret, at 
     least from the Sudanese government, for fear that it might 
     seek to eliminate a witness. Once, a bombing seemed to target 
     his hut, but he heard the plane approaching and ran out in 
     his skivvies and took cover; the bombs missed, and he was 
     unhurt.
       After the first few weeks, the killings on the ground 
     abated. But the government has continued the bombings.
       ``It's terrifying when they bomb,'' Ryan told me. ``You 
     don't feel safe at any time of day or night.''
       The bombs typically miss and have killed fewer than 200 
     people, he says, but they prevent people from farming their 
     fields. Several hundred thousand people have been driven from 
     their homes in the surrounding state of South Kordofan, Ryan 
     says, and a famine may be looming.
       ``It's not a good time to have kids,'' Ryan quoted Jazira 
     as telling him. ``If we have kids, they'll just starve.''
       Frustrated by the lack of attention for the Nubans' plight, 
     Ryan decided to return to the United States this month and 
     tell his story. He couldn't get a visa for Jazira in time--
     obtaining an American visa for a spouse is a long and complex 
     process--so she is in a refugee camp for 15,000 Nubans in 
     South Sudan, struggling to address health needs there. 
     Meanwhile, in Washington, Ryan has testified before Congress 
     and met with White House officials.
       Soon, he'll go back, rejoining Jazira and sneaking back 
     with her into the Nuba Mountains. It'll be more dangerous 
     than ever now that he has gone public, but he is determined 
     to give voice to the voiceless--and Nubans will do everything 
     to protect him.
       In a world where leaders often pretend not to notice mass 
     atrocities, for fear that they might be called Upon to do 
     something, I find Ryan an inspiration. His eyewitness 
     accounts make it more difficult for the world to neglect a 
     humanitarian crisis in the Nuba Mountains--even if he does 
     need to brush up on his tech skills.
       I asked Ryan if he planned to use Twitter.
       ``Twitter?'' he asked. ``I've been in the bush for nine 
     years, so I don't know how to use it.'' But he's planning to 
     learn.

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