The Worse Place to Be a Donkey: A Cry for Compassion

 A Tale of Cruelty and the Urgent Need for Change

By: Abraham Daljang Maker

Renk, a small town nestled on the banks of the Nile River in South Sudan's Upper Nile State, is where you would never wish to be a donkey if at all one chooses what you should be. Curelity treatment of donkeys is everywhere despite the town's seemingly peaceful façade. Here, donkeys, once considered noble and hardworking creatures, endure unimaginable suffering and cruelty. In a place where empathy seems to have faltered, their existence has become synonymous with pain and neglect.

Every day at the break of dawn, the streets of Renk come alive with the sound of hooves pounding against the muddy ground. These donkeys, their spirits broken and bodies burdened, carry heavy water carts to fulfil the basic needs of the town's inhabitants, who heavily rely on buying water from the river Nile where Donkeys are used to fetch water. It is in this task that their agony unfolds as they face relentless beatings and torment. 

                                 A sight of some boys is observed atop a donkey that is transporting a water tank. 

The donkeys of Renk town bear the heaviest weight of the world upon their backs, literally and figuratively. Their bodies, emaciated from meagre rations, struggle to sustain the arduous labour imposed upon them with few hours to munch grass given to them. The scars and wounds that mar their hides speak volumes of the cruelty they endure from dawn to dusk. Raw and bleeding wounds, their backs bear the signs of merciless beatings. Left untreated and exposed to harsh environments, such as heat and rain, the injuries become infested with flies, which feast upon their pain. The donkeys endure their suffering in silence, their gentle eyes mirroring a sense of resignation to their fate; hearing them call out in cry makes me think they could be calling each other to stage a sit-down strike or rebellion to liberate themselves from the cruelty of humans.

             Observing a donkey taking a much-needed break from arduous labour, one can notice a visible wound on its back.

Adding to their burden are the young boys perched atop the water tanks in the carts. Forced into a life of hardship at a tender age, these boys lack the understanding and empathy necessary to recognize the pain they inflict upon the donkeys. In a misguided attempt to control them, the mouths of the donkeys are tightly bound with lower lips parted and tonguing hovering out the whole day, rendering them unable to eat or drink as they toil under the scorching sun. To further restrict their movements and prevent distractions, pieces of cardboard are crudely fashioned into makeshift blinders, obscuring their peripheral vision. The donkeys, robbed of their instincts to glance sideways for respite, endure a life of monotonous suffering. Once symbols of resilience and partnership, the donkeys are living testaments to human apathy.