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On a dirt track in southern Sudan, an
old man all matchstick limbs flees for his life.

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In his etoliated and feeble state, the odds
are against him. Ahead is a walk of some 50 miles

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to the nearest town with food.

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He leaves behind him only starvation and horror,
what the local Dinka tribesman say

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was a massacre of men, women and children. What
happened in this marshland has its origins in another

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part of Sudan, 150 miles away.

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A United Nations relief plane lands at
a place called Nasir. More aid flights reach

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here, than anywhere else in the country.
This bend of the river is relatively speaking

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a land of plenty. The flights get through with permits
from the Sudanese government.

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Nasir is the headquarters of a new rebel leader,
who in the name of democracy has spilt the Guerrilla

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movement in southern Sudan, and in doing so appears
to appears to have received more than a little

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encouragement from khartoum. Commander Riek Machar
is 38 and has a doctorate in engineering from Bradford university.

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His tribe the Nuer, regard him as a saviour,
someone they've been told to expect

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by a 19th century prophet. Riek's fight he says
is for democracy, but it's tribal as well.

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His Nuer warriors distinguished by marks accross the forehead.
From an old comrade in arms there are bitter words.

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They will be known in history as people who
stabbed the movement in southern Sudan

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in the back. They will be know as people who,
at the point of victory, when we were going to win,

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they stabbed us in the back.

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In contrast to the rich Muslim north,
southern Sudan is Christian and poor.

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John Garang from the Dinka tribe has led
the rebel SPLA since it was founded in 1983.

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It's reduced the government to three strongholds
in the south, the capital Juba, and the garrison towns of Wau

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and Malakal. The rebel split came last August, Reik Machar,
formerly fourth in the high command, accused Garang

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of being a dictator, and set up on his own in Nasir
in the Nuer heartland.

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Garang didn't like assemblance of institutions,
of structures, of democracy within the movement.

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He is interested in running the movement as
his personal property.

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A dawn parade of new recruits in Nasir.
The spilt in the SPLA with it's tribal overtones.

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Has inevitably meant more than  just a trading of insults.
This maybe the Christian south, but in the months leading

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 up to Christmas, an army of young Nuer soldiers,
militia and tribesmen march south through the Dinka villages

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including John Garang's birth place. It was to be a
wide and bloody sweep.

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To reach some villages visited by the marauding army,
you have to travel by foot a trek of over 100 miles.

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The camerman who took this film was the first
journalist to go there. In his words,

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everywhere there was a stench of death.
On the edge of the marshland

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a vulture has been picking at a human corpse.

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Great herdsmen that they are, in this
region the Dinka lost all their cattle.

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It's impossible to know how many people died,
some say more than 5000.

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Many ran from the villages to hide in swamp,
and were slaughtered there, some were strangled,

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others were shot.

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This woman said the soldiers arrived looking
for John Garang's men, they'd come

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she says with a magician. His spells had protected
the outsiders from death, but not her people.

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Bodies were left in the marshland to the mercies
of the hyenas.

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We were unable to bury them. We have no man power.
No energy. We couldn't bury them.

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These were our brothers, and our sisters.

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The regional hospital only has a few patients left,
anyone seriously wounded died for lack of drugs.

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I was not physically there, but... yes, yes I was the
commander of the forces They were in touch with me, yes.

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They were in touch with me

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And they had their specific instructions.
Civilians, were have no quarrel with them.

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I cannot just say, kill the Dinka born. No,
not at all.

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They are using it as a human rights violation.
I'm aware of it. But i think it is propaganda.

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Everywhere the camerman went, he met people
looking for their relatives.

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A child is frightened by the camera, but his
father, an SPLA guerrilla has something to smile about,

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he's found his son again.

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A young herdsmen Ajak, fled when the fighting began.

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Now that things have quietened down,
he's come back to his home town of

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Conger, to look for his mother. He's been looking for her
for the past two weeks.

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In his absence, Conger has become a virtual
ghost town, only a few old people have

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stayed behind.

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This old man was simply to weak to move.

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The population of Conger was over 10,000.
It's now less than 100.

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Ajak didn't find his mother, and he
moved on continuing his lone search.

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Most villagers took to the swamps during the
fighting, where increasingly the problem is finding

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anything to eat. They've begun to harvest
the water lilys.

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Despite widespread malaria and other diseases,
the Dinka have made camp on islands in the marsh.

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The staples were meat and milk, now in desperation
there's only the water lily seeds ground

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to an edible paste. The process takes about a week,
and the result is flavourless and of minimal nutritional

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value. The best that can be said about,
this clay like paste is that it can keep you alive...just.

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Three miles away the airstrip at Conger. No planes
have landed here for at least four months.

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The Sudanese government strictly limits the
number of planes going to areas under the control

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of the SPLA. Still, a few women and children while
away the day, waiting and waiting

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in the remote hope of a United Nations flight
bringing in supplies.

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The biggest single concentration of refugees in
southern Sudan is to be found in the town

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of Bor, John Garang's birth place.

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It's a place of starving children, the refugee camp
that has sprung up since the attack

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by Riek's men. When the cameraman was there,
the only food available was

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biscuits for children. The United Nations is mounting an
operation by road, to bring in more supplies.

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This is the rebel frontline. Most of the SPLA's hardware
has been thrown into the siege of the southern capital Juba.

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Government forces exploiting the distraction of the
Riek attack, pushed them back some ten miles.

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And another government offensive is expected
imminently. This is the 9th year of

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was in the south, and in John Garang's view,
democracy can wait.

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Democracy has been so much beaten up these days,
that even the devil can come and say he's

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he's a democrat people will listen to him.

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In a way, in the SPLA, we are a victim of
our own image, of our own success.

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So the SPLA is a tool, a tool cannot be democratic.

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It's a tool in order to bring about a democratic
society.

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The rebel campaign is now dogged by tribalism.
Even if the two main tribes, Nuer and Dinka,

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have intermarried for over a century, what
happened in the marshland won't be easily

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erased from Dinka memories. In the last two years
southern Sudan has been hit by drought and then floods.

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In this warzone, more than most, the brunt of the
suffering falls, not on soldiers,

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but on civilians.

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As of this moment the UN estimates that accross
southern Sudan, there are some two million

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dependant on it's aid, some clearly get more than others.

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The Dakota DC-3 is one of two planes which
ferries in supplies every day to

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Nasir. Where the food is needed most, among
the Dinka villages the problem remains

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of getting a flight permit from khartoum.