Southern Sudan

MSF is responding to outbreaks of kala azar—a severe parasitic disease—in Southern Sudan. The emergency is in several locations across the eastern part of the region, and MSF is treating patients in its clinics in Pibor and Lankien, both in Jonglei State, and using mobile teams in Rom, in Upper Nile State, to actively trace patients.

On Sunday, September 20, yet another violent clash broke out in Duk Patdiet, Jonglei State, in Southern Sudan. This is part of an escalating wave of violence in the region that has been ongoing since the beginning of the year.

On August 29, a violent attack in Twic East County, Jonglei State in Southern Sudan, resulted in the reported deaths of 42 people, many of them women and children. Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is currently mobilizing resources to help the victims of the attack, which injured more than 60 persons and displaced up to 24,000 people.

In the northeast of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and in the south of neighboring Sudan, Ugandan rebels from the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) have been perpetrating acts of extreme violence on civilians in response to operations conducted against them by national armies of the DRC, Uganda, and southern Sudan.

MSF provides care to hundreds of thousands of people in six states in Southern Sudan. In recent months, increasing violence and insecurity caused mostly by fighting between different tribes, as well as heightened tensions around disarmament initiatives, criminality in the regional capital, Juba, and road banditry has made it more difficult for MSF field teams to reach people in need of aid.

MSF has been forced to make the decision to temporarily evacuate its team, as the insecurity in and around the town has reached dangerous levels. MSF is the only healthcare provider in Pibor town.

On Friday, May 8, an attack on the village of Torkej in Upper Nile State in Southern Sudan, located on the border with Jonglei State, resulted in the arrival of many war wounded to a Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Nasir. Patients reported that many people were dead in the village and that thousands were forced to flee. Torkej is approximately 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Nasir, where MSF runs a hospital providing basic health care and surgical care.

Following recent outbreaks of violence between rival ethnic groups in Jonglei State, Southern Sudan, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams are treating wounded from each side, assisting those who fled their villages, and treating malnutrition and cholera.

Malnutrition is the most acute problem for the displaced population from Abyei and its surroundings. Before the fighting began, malnutrition rates were above 50 percent, based on screenings carried out in the hospital in Abyei.

The fighting that erupted in Abyei on May 14 has forced nearly 50,000 people to flee. They are now scattered around the area with little access to food, shelter, or water.

Geneva/Khartoum/Juba/New York, May 22, 2008 — Since May 14, fighting between the Sudanese armed forces and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) has devastated the town of Abyei, which has been virtually destroyed. Almost the entire local population has fled to the north and south of the town to seek refuge.

In Northern Bahr el Ghazal, families returning to southern Sudan after the end of a 21-year-civil war face innumerable hardships, including a lack of food and continued violence.

Since February 2008, the situation in Aweil, Bahr-el-Ghazal State, has worsened. The combination of: clashes between armed forces and tribal militias along the disputed border of northern and southern Sudan; ongoing political tensions; increased food insecurity due to flooding last year and the return of thousands of Sudanese former refugees; and a lack of functioning medical facilities has prompted MSF to launch an emergency response.

In southern Sudan, thousands of families displaced by the recent armed conflict in the oil-rich region of Abyei are in need of emergency assistance. This is occurring in a region where resources are already extremely depleted.

More than three years after the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in January 2005, medical needs remain critical, and simmering tensions create a precarious security situation. This report focuses on the areas of Greater Upper Nile, including Unity, northern Jonglei and Upper Nile States. Although extrapolations to other areas must be done with caution, the health situation in Greater Upper Nile can be considered representative of many of the war-devastated communities in southern Sudan.

Southern Sudan has paid one of the highest prices among countries affected by meningitis this year. Several teams from Doctors Without Borders/Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) are caring for those affected by the deadly epidemic and vaccinating the population at risk throughout a number of states in the region. To make matters worse, cholera is quickly progressing in a number of areas.