Emma's War

Emma McCune was a beautiful young British aid worker who fell for—and married—Riek Machar, a rival of John Garang for most of the long years of Sudan’s second civil war (1983-2005), reluctant leader of a bloody post-independence revolt, and now one of the country’s five (sic) Vice-Presidents. Emma died in 1993 in a traffic accident in Kenya, but wherever I have been in both Sudan and South Sudan, hosted by aid workers, I have found echoes of her. Emma wanted to make the world a better place—who can knock that?—but her naivete allowed her to be easily manipulated and impressed… show more.

I’ve always been interested in the subculture of Peace Corp and NGO workers in Africa. Journalist Deborah Scroggins traveled to Sudan to research British aid worker Emma McCune and to interview the people whose lives she recounts. Emma McCune, reputed to have said to Scroggins, “In my heart, I’m Sudanese,” left her former life behind to marry SPLM guerilla leader Riek Macher. During the years McCune and Macher were married, the country was engaged in a brutal civil war. Years after Emma McCune died, Macher became South Sudan’s first vice-president. Emma McCune died in a car accident in Nairobi in… show more.