How doomed trip to S. Sudan broke Frank Njoroge's spirit

Christmas and New Year were normal working days for Captain Frank Njoroge, who spent the festive period flying a chartered plane over the skies of South Sudan.

With him on all the flights was his co-pilot, Lieutenant-Colonel Kennedy Shamalla of KWS.

Their mission was fairly simple — to fly a team engaged in de-mining South Sudan to Bieh State in the northern part of the newest nation in Africa.

READ: Pilots held captive in S.Sudan arrive home - VIDEO

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VIOLENCE
South Sudan, which borders Kenya to the north, has been spasmodically emerging from years of a war for independence that quickly morphed into a civil war seven years ago.

Many of its regions remain restive and some are virtually controlled by rebels.

Whichever way one looks at it, this is a dangerous territory, even for pilots who have trained in the military.

However, there was work to be done and Frank and Kennedy felt they were ready for the challenge.

What they did not know was that the otherwise routine assignment would turn into a nightmare one sunny afternoon on January 7.

AVIATION
It was a Sunday — Frank remembers it as his “Black Sunday”.

They had flown a team of nine experts to Akobo, near South Sudan’s border with Ethiopia.

At the time, South Sudan was changing some of its aviation systems.

This meant that for the return from Akobo to Juba, Frank and his co-pilot had about three and a half hours to be back in Juba before the systems shutdown for upgrade at 6.30pm.

Frank reckoned that if they lifted off at around 2.45pm, they would have enough time to fly back.

“I briefed the co-pilot,” Frank recalls of the final minutes before they took to the skies.

CRASH

This was a routine procedure and they were soon airborne after ensuring everything was okay.

But something went terribly wrong. Although they had powered the single-engine aircraft to capacity ready for take-off, the aircraft was not gaining altitude.

At that point, there were very few options open to the crew and it quickly became evident to Frank the aircraft was going to crash.

The only option open to him at that point was to control the crash.

The aircraft was still within the airstrip. It overran the runway and into the perimeter fence before tearing through three mud and grass-thatched huts at the edge of the airstrip.

The engine instantly caught fire but Frank could not just jump out and run.

“You just don’t crash and jump out,” he says.

PASSENGERS

There are emergency manoeuvres one must undertake, including switching off the fuel system to save lives and also minimise damage to the aircraft.

As he was tinkering with the gadgets, his co-pilot jumped out and started dragging the shocked passengers to safety.

By the time Frank was done with the emergency procedures, Kennedy had evacuated six passengers.

Frank helped him with the other three. Once the passengers were safe, they decided to make a dash for their luggage.

To their chagrin, no sooner had they saved the luggage than the angry villagers came for the bags, carting them away, never to be seen again.

“They were very aggressive,” Frank recalls. “They even checked our pockets for money.”

INJURED
Although the airstrip’s security team responded swiftly, they were too late to save the personal effects of the nine passengers and the two crew.

They had lost everything. The last thing Frank remembers of the scene of the burning Cessna was seeing five cattle injured and making unsuccessful attempts to get to their feet.

Not far from them was an elderly man who was also struggling.

“We were later told he died in the night, but we never saw his body,” Frank says, signalling that he doubted this version of events.

It took the intervention of six armed security men to save the 11 from the wrath of the villagers.

GOVERNOR'S HOUSE

Luckily for them, the home of the region’s commissioner was not far away from the scene and they found refuge there.

Once they reached safety, the nine passengers were taken back to the TDI office, not far from the airport, under tight security.

Frank and Kennedy were left behind in the commissioner’s home. They believed they were in luck because the governor, Mr Koang Rambang, though a rebel, was in town and that evening, he invited them for a meal, talking to them in Kiswahili and sharing stories about how he spent years in school in Kenya.

Although the commissioner also studied in Kenya, he was not fluent in Kiswahili but spoke polished English.

“Those were our captors,” Captain Frank says.

RIEK MACHAR
According to him, when he asked Mr Rambang when they would be allowed to go home, the governor told him: “My instructions are to give you safety here.”

Not long after, Mr Rambang told the media that only former vice-president Riek Machar, a rebel who fell out with president Salva Kiir, could authorise the release of the two.

On their first night, the two were offered a 3x6 mattress and two bed sheets, which was to serve as their beddings for the duration of their captivity.

They shared the mattress and each had a bed sheet.

On the morning of the second day, they were offered a cup of coffee each for breakfast, and it was served by a servant who disappeared with the pot soon after he had poured out the beverage.

“There was no second helping,” Frank remembers.

RANSOM
By the third day, the commissioner and the governor had made a demand for a ransom for the loss the villagers had suffered.

“They wanted Sh20 million. But they wanted it in US dollars,” Frank says.

When a week went by without word about the possibility of the payment being made, the breakfasts stopped.

So did the lunches, the only meal Frank and Kennedy were allowed in a day. The niceties too were thrown out of the window.

“We had to make do with water,” Frank recalls.

WATER

On a normal day, temperatures would range from lows of 42 degrees to highs of 45 degrees centigrade and lows of 38 degrees in the night.

Frank and his colleague were always sweating. For Frank, his condition was made worse by his eczema and high blood pressure.

They were always drinking water because of the heat.

They had to fetch it from a nearby well but could only draw water when there were no women around since they were not allowed to mingle with the womenfolk.

On many a day, they could drink two buckets between them. They spent the rest of the time swatting flies with their small towels.

“Each of us could kill about 350 a day,” he says. At nights, they spent long hours swatting mosquitoes.

BUSINESS
Two weeks into their captivity, the governor and the commissioner said TDI had been part of the problem.

The organisation was asked to pay Sh20 million, again in dollars. TDI denied culpability and its vehicles were confiscated as a result.

Eventually, they had to close shop. This was a body blow for the two Kenyans because TDI staff had been allowed to give them a meal a day. Now that too was gone.

One day, the commissioner asked them to eat Kisra, a South Sudanese flat bread, with milk.

The meal was so unappealing that the two turned down the offer.

FOOD

The commissioner thought his generosity had been abused and the two were left to their own devices to fend for themselves.

Luck smiled on them when the governor gave them 10,000 Sudanese pounds with which they bought food at the nearby market.

Each day, Frank would buy a chicken and get Ethiopian women to cook it for him.

“The cooking was more expensive than the chicken,” he recalls.

On some days, Kennedy would readily share the meal. Many times, however, he was too depressed to eat.

RESCUE

After an ordeal that lasted five weeks, help at last came in the sixth week when the company that had insured the Cessna gave the money to pay the compensation.

However, it had to be delivered by a UN helicopter because there was a rumour that the governor had demanded Sh200 million.

Just as their ordeal started on a Sunday, it was to end on a Sunday when the Kenyan ambassador to South Sudan, Mr Cleland Leshore, the military attache and another team, including doctors from the Red Cross, came to their rescue.

“They saved my life,” Frank says of the Red Cross doctors. “They had also brought the money. The equivalent of Sh11 million in dollars.”

EMOTIONAL STRESS
Frank laments that although the villagers were compensated and there is a high chance that the aircraft company will also be compensated, he was left out yet he endured much suffering in the hands of the South Sudanese despite having saved the lives of his passengers.

“The huts were paid for; the victim was paid for; the cows were paid for; the aircraft will be paid for.

"Yet, I suffered for six weeks, drinking water and without seeing my family and without earning... and nobody is thinking of compensating me,” he says, tears welling up in his eyes.

Soon after he was freed and flown to Kenya, he was taken for treatment at Mater Hospital.

Sadly, two days after he was discharged, his wife Beatrice fell ill, a condition that Frank blames on the toll that his incarceration took on his family.

HOSPITAL BILL
She was transferred from the High Dependency Unit of the Meridian Equitor Hospital in Nairobi on Sunday, March 25.

By then, he hospital bill had accumulated to Sh1.52 million. And Frank has no way of footing the bill.

“I am not sick,” he says. “I can still fly. But in aviation medicine, we say that if you have a problem at home, don’t fly. Solve the problem first, then go and fly.”

He cannot fly with his wife in hospital and the bill ballooning.

NEIGHBOUR
As tears well up in his eyes again, a white aircraft glides past his home in Syokimau on its way to the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.

Across the fence, his neighbour is running a welding machine while another is walking her dogs.

Not too far away, the local butcher is attending to a customer; the hardware next door is open for business and the man who sells roast maize is stationed at the junction leading to Frank’s home.

Time flies on, oblivious of Captain Frank’s tears.