# data[].attributes.headline
Refugees From Sudan Civil War : Starving Boys Walk for Months to Relief Camps

# data[].attributes.subject
Refugees From Sudan Civil War : Starving Boys Walk for Months to Relief Camps

# data[].attributes.body
Article

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The worst cases lay in four long huts: hundreds of exhausted and emaciated boys who had walked two, three or four months across southern Sudan, eating only leaves and roots along the way. They were motionless, many of them naked, their long, thin legs stretched out on mats made of elephant grass. Each day, a few died.

Nearby, under a small tent, were 50 youngsters who had nearly starved to death, recovered and now showed signs of mental disorders.

"That's the most disheartening thing, to see 10-, 11- and 12-year-olds who have gone mad because they can no longer deal with this mentally," said a relief official who visited the refugee camp in Ethiopia last month and described the scene in an interview.

So far this year, more than 40,000 young refugees fleeing civil war in southern Sudan have flooded across the border into the Gambela region of southwestern Ethiopia. The boys, primarily from the Dinka tribe of cattle herders, have been arriving at the rate of about 11,000 a month, swelling the population of four refugee camps to 280,000, about twice capacity.

"They began coming all of a sudden in November. And they told us more were coming," said Alain Peters, director of the U.N. High Commission for Refugees in Ethiopia. "Only the fittest were making it, and when they reached the camps many were ready to die."

In March, young refugees suffering from malnutrition and intestinal ailments were dying at the rate of six a day there. A measles epidemic in one camp killed more than 100 in December. But more food and medicine are now being delivered to the camps, and for the first time the death toll has begun to fall, to about one person a day.

Most of the refugees say they began their journey out of Sudan when militiamen invaded their villages and killed their fathers. The frightened young boys did not wait to see what would happen to their mothers and sisters. They escaped and started walking.

Relief workers say those roaming militia are armed and supported by the predominantly Arab and Muslim government in northern Sudan, which has been waging war for five years against the black southerners, who are Christian or animist, of the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army. The rebels, led by John Garang, a U.S.-educated former army colonel, are seeking autonomy and economic reforms.

Caught in Crossfire

About 100,000 civilians caught in the crossfire have left the southern province of Bahr el Ghazal during the last three months, 40,000 of them heading east to Ethiopia and 60,000 north to the capital, Khartoum, relief officials estimate.

But a woman and six children from the south recently starved to death after arriving at the train station in Khartoum, prompting the Sudan Times newspaper to criticize the "spectacular indifference" of the government to the plight of refugees from the south.

About 2 million people are said to have fled war and drought in southern Sudan in recent years. The invading militias kill the adult men, steal their cattle and have in some cases enslaved women, refugees have told relief officials.

The women and elderly men who escape tend to travel north because the route is believed to be less arduous. The young boys, traveling without clothing or supplies, walk east toward the mixed acacia and tall grass of Ethiopia's lowlands, about 600 miles west of Addis Ababa.

Worse Than in Ethiopia

In recent interviews here, relief officials and Western diplomats who visited the camps in April described the scene as worse than anything seen in Ethiopia during the famine of 1984-85.

The sight of starving young boys at the medical unit in Fugnido, where 27,000 refugees live, "was more than most of us could handle without having a severe emotional reaction," one of the foreign visitors said.

The camps were overflowing and essential medical supplies, such as oral rehydration salts for treating diarrhea, were unavailable. In Itang, the largest camp, near Gambela in Ilubabor province, a community of 186,000 had not had milk for eight months.

The Ethiopian Red Cross Society, a local agency closely affiliated with the Ethiopian government, and the government's Relief and Rehabilitation Commission had been working in Itang since they opened to refugees several years ago. But the sudden influx of refugees took them by surprise.

Unprepared for Influx

A U.N. medical team that visited in March described "an extreme state of lack of preparedness."

"No one was prepared for this many people," acknowledged Peters, of the U.N. refugee agency. The feeding program was inadequate, and obtaining emergency food had been hard because the roads are in poor shape and the nearest port is more than 1,000 miles away. The refugees got their drinking water from a nearby river.

Many of the refugees were too young to care for themselves. In Fugnido, for example, more than half the refugees were under 15. Women accounted for only 3% of the population.

However, the situation has improved in recent weeks as more food and medicine have arrived, relief officials say. The U.N. World Food Program announced an $8.6-million emergency operation for the region, including basic food supplies, and other relief agencies, including the U.S. Agency for International Development and UNICEF, have provided instant milk and other assistance.

Offers of Help Declined

"It's under control now," Peters said. But the number of arriving refugees continues to increase, and relief agencies are trying to get a large stock of food into the camps before the seasonal rains make dirt roads impassable.

On the Sudan side of the border, some help appears to be on the way. Pierre Pont, chief delegate of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said Thursday in Khartoum that the Sudanese government and resistance leader John Garang have approved a relief operation in southern Sudan, in both government and rebel-held areas. News reports from Khartoum quoted Pont as saying that a survey team will go to southern Sudan this weekend and that a food airlift would begin in about three weeks, under Red Cross supervision.

Although most relief officials say the Gambela refugee camps in Ethiopia need much more assistance, the Ethiopian government has turned down offers of help from several relief agencies, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, Medecins Sans Frontieres-Belgium and Action Internationale Contre la Faim.

Several dozen relief workers from those three organizations have been idle since the government ordered international relief workers out of the war-torn north in April. Yet the government has denied them permission to work in the Gambela area, in the southwest.

"We are ready to work anywhere, and Gambela is one of the most pressing emergencies in the country at the moment," said Philippe Bories, head of the French group, Action Internationale. Bories wanted to send two doctors and a nurse, who are sitting in Addis Ababa awaiting a new project.

Told to Work Elsewhere

"But we are told local organizations can handle it, which is not true, and we are 'kindly advised to concentrate in other areas,' " Bories added.

Western diplomats say the Marxist government in Ethiopia has not trusted private relief agencies since the last famine, when the medical relief organization, Medecins Sans Frontieres-France, was expelled from the country for criticizing the government.

The government has told the agencies that it would be pleased to receive relief food, supplies and trucks from international organizations but that foreign representatives of the agencies will not be allowed to work in the camps.

"It's a pretty pathetic situation," says a Western diplomat. "Right here in Addis Ababa, we have the best team of experts you could find anywhere in the world to deal with a relief emergency. But very little of that capacity has been tapped."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Refugees From Sudan Civil War : Starving Boys Walk for Months to Relief Camps

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The worst cases lay in four long huts: hundreds of exhausted and emaciated boys who had walked two, three or four months across southern Sudan, eating only leaves and roots along the way. They were motionless, many of them naked, their long, thin legs stretched out on mats made of elephant grass.

# data[].attributes.body
Nonfiction Articles that relate to A Long Walk to Water

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Newsela | "A Long Walk to Water" By Linda Sue Park

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Newsela is an Instructional Content Platform that supercharges reading engagement and learning in every subject.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Newsela | Walking many a mile along the Nile

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A former captain in the British army is walking through South Sudan's civil war as he follows the Nile River from Rwanda to Egypt.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Water Changes Everything | charity: water

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Journey Episode 2: Life without Clean Water | charity: water

# data[].attributes.headline
For many of the world's poor, drinking water can kill

# data[].attributes.subject
For many of the world's poor, drinking water can kill

# data[].attributes.body
Article

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Water Changes Everything | charity: water

# data[].attributes.body
Visual of what the Itang Refugee Camp in Ethopia would be like.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In chapter 11 Salva gets to the Itang refugee camp in Ethiopia.

# data[].attributes.headline
A Long Walk to Water - Visuals for each Chapter

# data[].attributes.subject
A Long Walk to Water - Visuals for each Chapter

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In chapter 1 the civil war comes to where Salva lives and he is forced to leave his family, home, and everything he knows to run toward the bush and find safety. In chapter 2 Salva and the people he is walking with runs into southern rebels and they split up the Women and children and take the men to fight in the war with them forcefully.

# data[].attributes.headline
Chap 8 - Mosquitoe Netting and Mosquitoe bites that are deadly

# data[].attributes.subject
Chap 8 - Mosquitoe Netting and Mosquitoe bites that are deadly

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Cooking, eating, fetching water, washing, chatting - in Ifakara, the huts are too small for so much action. People in this city in rural Tanzania are poor, most homes are only big enough to hold a bed or two. Except for sleeping, residents go about their lives outdoors - where the mosquitoes are, a deadly danger. One meaning of the word Ifakara is "the place where I die."

In Africa, a child dies of malaria every two minutes. Fever attacks, impaired consciousness and organ failure are typical symptoms. The parasites can multiply in about 30 different Anopheles mosquitoes - one bite, and they can enter a person's bloodstream.

The Kilombero Valley surrounding Ifakara is one of the African regions worst-hit by malaria.

"When I started working here, we couldn't count the mosquitoes we caught in light traps for our samples, we could only weigh them," says Gerry Killeen, an Irish researcher who has worked at the Ifakara Health Institute (IHI), a renowned center of malaria research, for 15 years. "Sometimes, the collection bags would be brimming with mosquitoes after a single night," he remembers.

More than 700,000 people die every year from mosquito bites because the insects transmit deadly diseases
Invincible anopheles mosquitoes
That has changed. Almost everyone in Ifakara sleeps under a mosquito net these days. Anopheles mosquitoes prefer to bite at night, and the nets rob them of their livelihood. Mosquito nets treated with insecticides are the main contributor to the fact that the death rate has dropped by 60 percent since 2000, and infections have decreased by a third. In the 1980s, a person living in Ifakara would suffer an average of 2,000 infectious mosquito bites per year. That figure has dwindled to 18.

Global figures, too, give reason for hope, even if a first glance paints a different picture: according to the WHO, 3.2 billion people live in areas at risk, and 212 million people fell ill with malaria last year - 18 percent fewer cases since 2000.

It seemed as if mankind might defeat malaria.

But the mosquitoes won't play along. Despite all efforts, they continue to fly, bite and kill. Malaria cases stagnate at the level once reached. It is like running into a wall, as if the opponent, believed defeated, is recovering. Researchers in Ifakara are intent on tracking down a mystery: malaria parasites can still be detected in the blood of more than ten percent of the population in the Kilombero valley although they sleep under nets. "If you take into account that Anopheles mosquitoes only bite at night, it is surprising that we still have so many cases of malaria here," says IHI Director of Science Fredros Okumu.
Human bait
Okumu is working to unravel the contradiction with the help of the residents of the Kilombero valley. For a small reward, they hunt for places where large numbers of mosquitoes gather, or act as human bait, sitting for hours beneath a mosquito net connected to a trap. They collect data, keep accounts of what exactly their family does between six in the evening and six in the morning.

IHI scientists in the lab check how many mosquitoes carry the parasite, whether the females have already bitten, and what species the insects belong to.

Helping science: Hamis Chande baits mosquitoes
Bruse Willis among mosquitoes
The pieces of the puzzle are slowly coming together to form a picture that explains the remaining cases of malaria. Just a few years ago, nine out of ten mosquitoes were of the Anopheles gambiae sensu strictu species, "efficient transmitters of malaria that only bite at night and only indoors ," according to Okumu. "This species has almost vanished because the mosquito nets prevent the insects from reaching people."

The IHI scientists found that other Anopheles sub-species took their place, mainly Arabiensis and Funestus. They call them the "Bruce Willis among Anopheles mosquitoes" for their flexibility and versatility - and most of all for the fact they are the devil to kill.

Anopheles arabiensis also bites cows and chickens if humans are not available. Anopheles funestus is less common, but the mosquitoes more often carry malaria parasites. Both are active during dusk, and remain so until the sun rises.

The data shows how skillfully the insects have adapted to humans. In Ifakara, they are most plentiful between eight and nine p.m. - surveys show that most people there go to bed under their protective mosquito nets between nine and ten. The mosquitoes show up again at around five a.m., when many people rise.

Occurance of malaria in Africa (light colors mean more cases, from 0 to more than 685 taken ill per 1,000 people per year)

Mosquitoes - at home on every continent except the Antarctic for 100 million years - are huge survival artists. Presumably, mosquitoes were around to bite dinosaurs, too. Their swift succession of generations lasting just two to three weeks and the large number of offspring - a female lays up to 300 eggs per deposition - make them extremely adaptable.

In order to completely push back malaria, a UN goal by the year 2030, humans must find a way to be safe from mosquito bites outside of their homes and beds,too. But how can that be achieved in Tanzania, where the average monthly income amounts to $75 (70 euros)? Many Tanzanians cannot even afford to buy candles to light their huts, much less an insect repellent. Ifakara farmers also cannot afford larger, mosquito-safe houses.
The time pressure is growing
IHI researchers are thus experimenting with various methods. They set up empty clay vases where mosquitoes like to hide during the day. The pots are treated with pyriproxifen, and the insects inadvertently carry the pesticide back to where they lay their eggs.

A hut in "Mosquito City," where scientists can study mosquito behavior under realistic conditions

The active agent prevents mosquito larvae from developing into adult mosquitoes. On the go, people can carry sisal mats saturated with an insecticide and set them up to keep the insects away, which more or less works up to five meters. Producing such mats costs about $2 apiece. Sandals treated accordingly also offer some protection.

It is a race against time, however - and against the mosquitoes' reaction. "Increasingly, they are becoming resistant against insecticides," says Nancy Matowo, a researcher who also works at the IHI. The insects have become resistant to at least one class of chemical agent in 60 out of 96 countries, the WHO warns. Ethiopia, Sudan and Afghanistan even report of mosquitoes that are resistant to all four available types of insecticides.
Welcome to "Mosquito City"
"For that reason, we wanted to develop a method that kills the mosquitoes immediately, without using an insecticide," Matowo says.

They came up with the Mosquito Landing Box, a black wooden box with adjustable louvers that hide netting linked to electricity, made partially from cheap electric bug swatters. A fan disperses an attractant that smells of human sweat, for instance used nylon socks. "When the mosquitoes fly into the box, they hit the electric grid, and die," Matowo says. Solar panels power the attractant dispensing unit during the day, at night the box uses a battery.

Nancy Matowo demonstrates the Mosquito Landing Box (MLB.) The odor created by the attractant dispensing unit inside the box is distributed by a fan. The silver plate on the lid reflects the odor.

The boxes were first tried out on the premises of "Mosquito City," the IHI's special biospheres to study mosquitoes. The huge greenhouses hold ponds, banana trees and huts with sleeping mats - a replica of the mosquitoes' hunting grounds.

The results are promising. A landing box reduces the number of mosquitoes out to bite humans to a fraction. Matowo's colleague Arnold Mmbando is already working on taking the box a step further: an off-putting odor could deter mosquitoes from alighting on humans, with the Landing Box waiting to bait and kill them when they flee.

Mmbando's boss Okumu is convinced that it takes such methods to completely eradicate malaria. The next phase of the battle probably is no longer about large scale intervention by the state, he says. Instead, every region needs its own, tailored strategy to ensure that in the fight against mosquitoes, it's not just mankind's opponent who adapts.

Unloved animals

A polarizing debate

Should we try to eradicate all invasive species or accept them as part of the planet's ever-changing nature? That's often a subject of heated debate. And one interesting argument often emerges: the mammal that has made itself at home in all corners of the world and wiped out more native flora and fauna than any other species, is man.

Author: Ruth Krause

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The deadly bite of mosquitoes | DW | 29.06.2017

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Cooking, eating, fetching water, washing, chatting - in Ifakara, the huts are too small for so much action. People in this city in rural Tanzania are poor, most homes are only big enough to hold a bed or two. Except for sleeping, residents go about their lives outdoors - where the mosquitoes are, a deadly danger.

# data[].attributes.headline
Refugees From Sudan Civil War : Starving Boys Walk for Months to Relief Camps

# data[].attributes.subject
Refugees From Sudan Civil War : Starving Boys Walk for Months to Relief Camps

# data[].attributes.body
Article

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The worst cases lay in four long huts: hundreds of exhausted and emaciated boys who had walked two, three or four months across southern Sudan, eating only leaves and roots along the way. They were motionless, many of them naked, their long, thin legs stretched out on mats made of elephant grass. Each day, a few died.

Nearby, under a small tent, were 50 youngsters who had nearly starved to death, recovered and now showed signs of mental disorders.

"That's the most disheartening thing, to see 10-, 11- and 12-year-olds who have gone mad because they can no longer deal with this mentally," said a relief official who visited the refugee camp in Ethiopia last month and described the scene in an interview.

So far this year, more than 40,000 young refugees fleeing civil war in southern Sudan have flooded across the border into the Gambela region of southwestern Ethiopia. The boys, primarily from the Dinka tribe of cattle herders, have been arriving at the rate of about 11,000 a month, swelling the population of four refugee camps to 280,000, about twice capacity.

"They began coming all of a sudden in November. And they told us more were coming," said Alain Peters, director of the U.N. High Commission for Refugees in Ethiopia. "Only the fittest were making it, and when they reached the camps many were ready to die."

In March, young refugees suffering from malnutrition and intestinal ailments were dying at the rate of six a day there. A measles epidemic in one camp killed more than 100 in December. But more food and medicine are now being delivered to the camps, and for the first time the death toll has begun to fall, to about one person a day.

Most of the refugees say they began their journey out of Sudan when militiamen invaded their villages and killed their fathers. The frightened young boys did not wait to see what would happen to their mothers and sisters. They escaped and started walking.

Relief workers say those roaming militia are armed and supported by the predominantly Arab and Muslim government in northern Sudan, which has been waging war for five years against the black southerners, who are Christian or animist, of the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army. The rebels, led by John Garang, a U.S.-educated former army colonel, are seeking autonomy and economic reforms.

Caught in Crossfire

About 100,000 civilians caught in the crossfire have left the southern province of Bahr el Ghazal during the last three months, 40,000 of them heading east to Ethiopia and 60,000 north to the capital, Khartoum, relief officials estimate.

But a woman and six children from the south recently starved to death after arriving at the train station in Khartoum, prompting the Sudan Times newspaper to criticize the "spectacular indifference" of the government to the plight of refugees from the south.

About 2 million people are said to have fled war and drought in southern Sudan in recent years. The invading militias kill the adult men, steal their cattle and have in some cases enslaved women, refugees have told relief officials.

The women and elderly men who escape tend to travel north because the route is believed to be less arduous. The young boys, traveling without clothing or supplies, walk east toward the mixed acacia and tall grass of Ethiopia's lowlands, about 600 miles west of Addis Ababa.

Worse Than in Ethiopia

In recent interviews here, relief officials and Western diplomats who visited the camps in April described the scene as worse than anything seen in Ethiopia during the famine of 1984-85.

The sight of starving young boys at the medical unit in Fugnido, where 27,000 refugees live, "was more than most of us could handle without having a severe emotional reaction," one of the foreign visitors said.

The camps were overflowing and essential medical supplies, such as oral rehydration salts for treating diarrhea, were unavailable. In Itang, the largest camp, near Gambela in Ilubabor province, a community of 186,000 had not had milk for eight months.

The Ethiopian Red Cross Society, a local agency closely affiliated with the Ethiopian government, and the government's Relief and Rehabilitation Commission had been working in Itang since they opened to refugees several years ago. But the sudden influx of refugees took them by surprise.

Unprepared for Influx

A U.N. medical team that visited in March described "an extreme state of lack of preparedness."

"No one was prepared for this many people," acknowledged Peters, of the U.N. refugee agency. The feeding program was inadequate, and obtaining emergency food had been hard because the roads are in poor shape and the nearest port is more than 1,000 miles away. The refugees got their drinking water from a nearby river.

Many of the refugees were too young to care for themselves. In Fugnido, for example, more than half the refugees were under 15. Women accounted for only 3% of the population.

However, the situation has improved in recent weeks as more food and medicine have arrived, relief officials say. The U.N. World Food Program announced an $8.6-million emergency operation for the region, including basic food supplies, and other relief agencies, including the U.S. Agency for International Development and UNICEF, have provided instant milk and other assistance.

Offers of Help Declined

"It's under control now," Peters said. But the number of arriving refugees continues to increase, and relief agencies are trying to get a large stock of food into the camps before the seasonal rains make dirt roads impassable.

On the Sudan side of the border, some help appears to be on the way. Pierre Pont, chief delegate of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said Thursday in Khartoum that the Sudanese government and resistance leader John Garang have approved a relief operation in southern Sudan, in both government and rebel-held areas. News reports from Khartoum quoted Pont as saying that a survey team will go to southern Sudan this weekend and that a food airlift would begin in about three weeks, under Red Cross supervision.

Although most relief officials say the Gambela refugee camps in Ethiopia need much more assistance, the Ethiopian government has turned down offers of help from several relief agencies, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, Medecins Sans Frontieres-Belgium and Action Internationale Contre la Faim.

Several dozen relief workers from those three organizations have been idle since the government ordered international relief workers out of the war-torn north in April. Yet the government has denied them permission to work in the Gambela area, in the southwest.

"We are ready to work anywhere, and Gambela is one of the most pressing emergencies in the country at the moment," said Philippe Bories, head of the French group, Action Internationale. Bories wanted to send two doctors and a nurse, who are sitting in Addis Ababa awaiting a new project.

Told to Work Elsewhere

"But we are told local organizations can handle it, which is not true, and we are 'kindly advised to concentrate in other areas,' " Bories added.

Western diplomats say the Marxist government in Ethiopia has not trusted private relief agencies since the last famine, when the medical relief organization, Medecins Sans Frontieres-France, was expelled from the country for criticizing the government.

The government has told the agencies that it would be pleased to receive relief food, supplies and trucks from international organizations but that foreign representatives of the agencies will not be allowed to work in the camps.

"It's a pretty pathetic situation," says a Western diplomat. "Right here in Addis Ababa, we have the best team of experts you could find anywhere in the world to deal with a relief emergency. But very little of that capacity has been tapped."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Refugees From Sudan Civil War : Starving Boys Walk for Months to Relief Camps

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The worst cases lay in four long huts: hundreds of exhausted and emaciated boys who had walked two, three or four months across southern Sudan, eating only leaves and roots along the way. They were motionless, many of them naked, their long, thin legs stretched out on mats made of elephant grass.

# data[].attributes.body
image

# data[].attributes.body
Image

# data[].attributes.body
Video of the Nile River's dangers

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Matt Power,39, died last year while covering the mammoth expedition of former paratrooper Levison Wood which is now a Channel 4 hit show

Mr Power, from New York, died just two hours after feeling unwell when he succumbed to the 45C (113F) heat in Northern Uganda

Photographer who was with him and Mr Wood as they desperately tried to save his life recounts the tragic moments

Mr Wood said: 'I did everything I could. We all did. But it happened on my watch'

Posing with a smile on his face just hours before his sudden death, this is the American journalist who died covering British explorer Levison Wood's attempt to walk the length of the Nile.

Matthew Power sits on a log in the African wilderness while on the assignment which would tragically be his last.

Standing next to him is Mr Wood who he was covering on his 4,000 mile, nine month walk of the world's longest river in a feat which has become a hit Channel 4 show in the UK.

Power died in March last year of heat stroke at the age of 39 after succumbing to the 45C (113F) sun in the remote Ajai Wildlife Reserve in Northern Uganda.

His death left Mr Wood and the other members of the crew 'numb with disbelief' said photographer Jason Florio, who was also on the trip.

Florio described in painful detail what happened and the desperate moments in which he pleaded for Power to 'keep breathing' as he faded in and out of consciousness.

He and Mr Wood repeatedly tried CPR and desperately tried to get a helicopter to carry out an air evacuation, but to no avail.

Speaking to MailOnline, Florio said that he has been left 'shell shocked' by his friend's death and that it was 'a huge thing to try and get your head around'.

But he said: 'Matt died doing what he absolutely loved doing. We came as people who had a certain amount of experience. We knew what we were going to face. I don't think there was any blame for anybody.'

Mr Power had flown to Uganda on an assignment for Men's Journal magazine after more than a decade of being a freelance journalist.

He had ridden freight trains across America, wrote about a village that had been poisoned by pesticide in India and tried to solve the mystery of how 11 climbers died in a single night on the mountain K2.

Along the way he won two prestigious Lowell Thomas Awards.

The Walking the Nile job was organised somewhat last minute - Florio recalls being asked if he could go that week - but he said the two men were well prepared.

They had attended the Reporters Instructed in Saving Colleagues in New York set up by author Sebastian Junger which was to help freelance journalists cope in extreme environments such as warzones.

They had both been on the road many times.

As Florio put it: 'We knew what we were getting ourselves in for'.

Their plan was to follow Mr Wood for six days to get a flavour of his trip. They hired porters to help carry their gear so that they would not be under too much strain.

We cleared the swamp and it was at that point we realised something wasn't right with Matt

For the first two days they were able to regularly fill up their water in villages where they stopped.

But come day three, March 10, the day the would go across the wildlife reserve, things were different.

Florio told MailOnline that the plan was to walk for about nine miles, then hitch a ride to the next camp and wait for Mr Wood and his guide, Boston Beka, to complete the rest.

He said: 'One we got into the game reserve, the terrain was really difficult. We were walking in a dirt swamp and the ground was very uneven. There was elephant grass 6ft to 10ft high.

'I felt claustrophobic and it was blisteringly hot and you couldn't see anything. There was a point when we thought we were going to cross a river where we could cool off but it was completely dry'.

The temperature that day was up to 45C, or 113F. Florio said that his and Mr Power's feet were blistering badly because they were sweating so much.

After about five miles Mr Power said he needed to sit down, and Florio was grateful for the break. Mr Power said he did not feel well but Beke said that they should press on.

Better to find some shade as it was lunch time, when the heat was at its worst, he said.

Florio said: 'We cleared the swamp and it was at that point we realised something wasn't right with Matt.

'We got him to sit down. He was throwing up. He was becoming disorientated and we tried to get some water into him. He was delirious very, very quickly.

'I kept saying to him "keep breathing", but I couldn't tell if he was hearing me. It was quite frightening to see how quickly someone can shut down in that situation'.

Beka and one of the rangers left to find water.

Those who stayed rung out their bandanas to give Mr Power some water and used up the rest of their meagre supplies.

They took off Mr Power's clothes to try and cool him down but they could not stop him going into hyperthermia, the opposite of hypothermia.

When your body's internal temperature gets above 39C, it effectively starts to shut down.

I kept saying to him "keep breathing", but I couldn't tell if he was hearing me. It was quite frightening to see how quickly someone can shut down in that situation

Once the process begins you have about 30 minutes to cool down before you slip into a coma, and eventually death.

Marathon runners competing in hot days reach such temperatures but drink water regularly and cool down rapidly at the end of the race.

As the minutes ticked by, Mr Wood tried to use his satellite phone to call for a helicopter to rescue them but nobody was able to fly out to them - some companies said the location was too remote.

He even called a friend in the UK to ask what he should do.

Florio said: 'I absolutely assumed that possible to get a helicopter. I've seen the (TV) shows and once Lev said that they couldn't get the helicopter for various reasons the reality of it became very scary.'

Worse was to come when a fire they had started to get the attention of potential rescuers went out of control.

First Mr Wood tried to hoist Mr Power onto his shoulder, but that did not work.

They had to wrap Mr Power in the tarpaulin and move him 100 yards away to safety under a tree.

In the chaos Florio and Mr Wood temporarily went deaf - Florio believes it was a combination of the extreme heat and the stress of the situation.

Two hours after he passed out, Mr Power died.

Florio said: 'We checked his pulse and we checked his breath. I put my ear to his chest but there was nothing. At that point we realised he had passed away. We tried CPR a couple of times as a last ditch but he was gone'.

Florio said that Mr Wood stayed in the town of Arua for a few days to 'get some perspective' and consider his options.

I think we all came out of the bush with Matt's body with a sense of quiet shock and grief that leaves you operable but numb with disbelief

Then he decided to go on with the trip, as he felt that is what Mr Power would have wanted.

Florio said: 'I think we all came out of the bush with Matt's body with a sense of quiet shock and grief that leaves you operable but numb with disbelief.

'The next day we went to make police statements. Then it was important to get Matt's body back to Kampala (Uganda's capital) that day.

'Lev (Wood) and Boston stayed on in Arua, and I took the eight hour drive back to Kampala with Matt's body.

'We spoke by phone about how we were all so deeply shaken by Matt's death and we spoke at length if there was any more we could have done.

'As we spoke about early, we concluded, under the extreme circumstances everything was weighted against us and we did all in our power to save him.'

Florio hailed Mr Power as somebody who was 'like a kid in a candy shop' while away on assignments, as he would be for between three and four months of the year.

He said: 'Matt was constantly excited about what was around him. It was like he was doing it for the first time. That got me fired up.'

Mr Power left behind a wife, Jessica Benko, 34, also a journalist, and his family; his mother Jane Steele, his father John Power and his two sisters.

He had grown up in Cornwall, Vermont, a farm town of 600 people and attended Middlebury College, a liberal arts school.

He spent a semester on the fiction MFA writing programme at Columbia University but found himself more interested in the journalism lectures, and realised non-fiction was for him.

Ms Steele told MailOnline that as a child her son was an avid reader, and reading about so many stories made him want to seek out and write his own.

She said: 'He was the kindest, he was outgoing. He welcomed everybody from every walk of life. He never turned his back on anyone...he was just amazing. He marched to his own beat. He didn't conform and that came out in his writing.'

Mr Power lived in Brooklyn, New York, with Benko.

Ms Steele said that her rule with her son's assignments was that he would tell her where he was going but they would only talk about what he did after he got back.

It's a tragedy. Matthew chose to go. He wasn't forced to go. He pitched the idea to the magazine. It wasn't as if somebody said to him: "You go or else"

Jane Steele, Matt's mother

Mr Power always called her at the airport as he was about to fly out of the country.

As he left for Uganda she got the usual call, he was rushing and had to go, with a final 'I love you'.

Four days later Miss Benko called her with the terrible news.

One detail that has transpired since Mr Power's death is his punishing schedule.

He arrived in Uganda the Thursday before he died, drove all day on the Friday to meet Mr Wood, and began walking on the Saturday.

Mr Power lives in New York where the temperature when he left was around -6C, or 20F, according to reports. Did he give himself enough time to acclimatise?

Miss Steele however said she had 'no ill-feeling' toward Mr Wood or the documentary, which she has not yet seen.

She said that she reached out to Mr Wood who sent her an email expressing his condolences and saying he was very sorry.

Ms Steele said: 'It's a tragedy. Matthew chose to go. He wasn't forced to go. He pitched the idea to the magazine. It wasn't as if somebody said to him: "You go or else".

'What he did, he did because he wanted to do it...

'...right to the end he was happy. He was always smiling, that was what he was known for, his white teeth and his smile.'

Miss Benko declined to comment when approached by MailOnline.

In memory of her husband she and his sister Elizabeth Power Robison has started a literary reporting fund which aims to allow others to continue doing what he did.

So far it has raised $182,000 of a target of $250,000 and once the total is reached, the fund will provide an annual grant to be given to support a reporting project by a promising young journalist.

Miss Steele has also set up her own memorial, a plaque at a waterfall in Middlebury that her son used to go to often.

It reads: 'Stay as long as you can. When you must go, take it with you all of your days'.

Mr Wood, 31, a former British Army paratrooper, told the Daily Mail's Jane Fryer earlier this week how he wrestled with his guilt over Mr Power's death.

He said: 'I did everything I could. We all did. But it happened on my watch. He was there to write about me. It brought the whole thing into question - the ethics of the expedition. Do you carry on - in his honour? In the end, it felt like the right thing to do, or it was all for nothing.'

His book is dedicated to Power's memory.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Desperate fight to save U.S. journo who died on Walking the Nile trip

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Matt Power,39, died last year while covering the mammoth expedition of former paratrooper Levison Wood which is now a Channel 4 hit show Mr Power, from New York, died just two hours after feeling unwell when he succumbed to the 45C (113F) heat in Northern Uganda Photographer who was with him and Mr Wood as they desperately tried to save his life recounts the tragic moments Mr Wood said: 'I did everything I could.

# data[].attributes.body
article

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
JUBA, South Sudan - Close calls with crocodiles, a brutal civil war and even the death of a fellow traveler have not deterred a British man from attempting to walk the length of the Nile River.

The yearlong, 4,250-mile journey along the world's longest river will see the former British army captain pass through seven countries.

After four months trekking through Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda, Levison Wood is now in South Sudan, a country with little infrastructure that has been destabilized by four months of fighting between pro- and anti-government forces. The 31-year-old said it took three years to plan the walk from Rwanda to Egypt.

"I've always had a passion for Africa since I was young. The River Nile has always interested me and I thought, what's the biggest expedition I could ever think of? And walking the Nile it was," he told the Associated Press.

Though he faces many dangers from both man and beast on the walk, Wood noted that past explorers didn't have the luxury of a satellite phone or Google maps.

"We've had some close calls with buffalo, elephants and very close call with a crocodile in Murchison Falls," a national park in Uganda, he said Thursday. "The toughest challenge I'm finding is to keep the momentum going and not get too dismayed when there are delays."

On average, Wood walks 20 miles a day, but he is seldom alone. His guide from Congo, who goes by the name Boston, has been a long-time companion. In South Sudan, three AK-47-wielding soldiers from the commando battalion flank him as security. Another South Sudanese man on a bike ferries supplies.

"South Sudan has been a challenge, to say the least," Wood said. "And when I set off on Nov. 25, I obviously didn't predict a civil war kicking off mid-December."

Further complicating matters is the camera crew following Wood to shoot a four-part documentary series for UK and US audiences on Britain's Channel 4 and America's Animal Planet. Wood and his crew were arrested while filming near the only bridge that crosses the Nile in South Sudan.

Weaving through the chaotic traffic in Juba, South Sudan's capital, Wood and his crew set a blistering pace. Their South Sudanese guide occasionally barks orders to stop filming near a national memorial or military installation.

There are safety concerns for this leg of the trip. The Nile passes through Jonglei state, a region that has seen heavy fighting in recent months.

"As that's the front line, I'll have to make a decision when I get there whether I have to move away from the river," he said.

Then a well-known Juba curiosity strolls past: a lanky man who is totally naked.

The team laughs. "No comment," Wood says to his probing cameraman.

While South Sudan appears to be the toughest part of his trip, it was in Uganda where tragedy struck. Experienced American adventure journalist Matt Power, who was walking with Wood, died from heat exhaustion March 10. Wood said the death forced him to reconsider his plans.

"We took a week off just to contemplate what happened and have a think about, 'Is this something we really want to be doing?'" he said.

After speaking with Power's wife and family, Wood, with their blessing, decided to continue.

"It is one of those things that really brings home the reality that this is not an easy thing to do. It's incredibly difficult and dangerous in parts and all I can do is be as prepared as I can be and hope the same doesn't happen to me," he said.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Brit takes on civil war & crocodiles to walk length of Nile River

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
JUBA, South Sudan - Close calls with crocodiles, a brutal civil war and even the death of a fellow traveler have not deterred a British man from attempting to walk the length of the Nile River. The yearlong, 4,250-mile journey along the world's longest river will see the former British army captain pass through seven countries.

# data[].attributes.body
photo

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Newsela | Walking many a mile along the Nile

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A former captain in the British army is walking through South Sudan's civil war as he follows the Nile River from Rwanda to Egypt.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Water Changes Everything | charity: water

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Journey Episode 2: Life without Clean Water | charity: water

# data[].attributes.headline
Ch 6+7 - For many of the world's poor, drinking water can kill

# data[].attributes.subject
Ch 6+7 - For many of the world's poor, drinking water can kill

# data[].attributes.body
Article

# data[].attributes.body
Nonfiction Articles that relate to A Long Walk to Water

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Newsela | "A Long Walk to Water" By Linda Sue Park

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Newsela is an Instructional Content Platform that supercharges reading engagement and learning in every subject.

# data[].attributes.body
Interview with Salva Dut and author, Linda Sue Park.

# data[].attributes.body
Salva's Home page

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
It all started with a Lost Boy of Sudan who just kept walking...

Water for South Sudan began when a Lost Boy from a rural village in southwestern Sudan returned home, only to find his father fighting deadly waterborne parasites.

After seeing his father's condition, Salva decided to take matters into his own hands and help his community access better water, sanitation, and hygiene practices.

And today, we call this movement Water for South Sudan!

5 MILLION

people in South Sudan live without daily access to safe water and sanitation services.

3.7 MILES
Children, often girls, spend their days walking for water. They walk an average of 3.7 miles per trip. Sometimes they make multiple trips to obtain water, carrying up to 40 pounds (18 kgs) of water each time.

10 PERCENT
of people in South Sudan have access to basic sanitation services

20 Years of Watering the Seeds of Change

Water Wells

We help drill, maintain, and restore water wells so the people in South Sudan have access to clean water all year-round.

Hygiene

We make sure to educate communities about hygiene so that the clean water from existing wells doesn't get contaminated due to poor hygiene practices.

Sanitation

Our sanitation program makes sure people have access to latrines so communities can prevent the spread of diseases.

Subscribe to The Wellspring, our monthly newsletter.

Stay up-to-date with our news and events.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
people in South Sudan live without daily access to safe water and sanitation services. Children, often girls, spend their days walking for water. They walk an average of 3.7 miles per trip. Sometimes they make multiple trips to obtain water, carrying up to 40 pounds (18 kgs) of water each time.

# data[].attributes.body
Tedx Talk about Chldren's book changing the world.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Can A Children's Book Change the World? | Linda Sue Park | TEDxBeaconStreet

# data[].attributes.body
resource