Torit, South Sudan – Solomon Oture was on the run.

As a rainmaker, his job was to summon rain – the lifeblood of his small farming community – through prayer and ritual.

But after consecutive years of drought, Oture’s relationship with his native village of Lohobohobo – a remote cluster of huts on the western side of South Sudan’s Lopit mountains – began to fray. Frustrated community leaders came demanding an explanation for his failures.

As anger rose, Oture, in his early 50s, feared for his safety. He fled, taking refuge at the home of his brother’s widow in another village, a four-hour walk away.

But his escape was short-lived.

Weeks later, in early October 2024, a group of young men from Lohobohobo arrived and made it clear Oture had no choice but to return with them.

The following morning, Oture was brought to face the community in the village square, a dirt clearing encircled by a rough-hewn wooden fence. When elders arrived to question him, the ruling generation of fighting-aged men – known as the Monyomiji – intervened. They announced that a decision had already been made.

According to one witness, Oture did not resist and moved calmly as he was led away from the square, out of the village, and down the mountain to a freshly dug hole in the earth.

When he reached its edge, Oture climbed down into the pit and was buried alive.

Rainmakers targeted

In South Sudan, where the climate crisis is ravaging livelihoods, massive floods and scorching droughts have uprooted families and fuelled one of the world’s worst hunger crises.

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Amid the mounting desperation, people want answers and, occasionally, someone to blame. In some farming villages, long dependent on seasonal rains, these tensions have put rainmakers at risk.

Oture’s killing was first reported by local media and later confirmed to Al Jazeera by family members, government officials in the state capital, Torit, and residents of the village where he lived.

He is not the only rainmaker to have met a violent death.

At least five others have been buried alive in the Lopit mountains over the past four decades, according to community leaders and local media reports, including one man in a neighbouring village whose 2021 killing was confirmed to Al Jazeera by a family member. More are said to have been buried in nearby areas, as well as burned alive, beaten to death, or chased into exile. The true toll is not known.

When killings occur, community members are reluctant to speak out.

The reporting for this story set out to uncover what happened to Oture and why. In Lohobohobo, nearly a year after Oture’s death, his killing is a taboo subject, and details of what happened are difficult to obtain.