People fleeing Sudan arriving in alarming health conditions: MSF
August 30, 2023 (MALAKAL) – Humanitarian organizations must urgently scale up their response to ease the difficulties faced by people fleeing the conflict from Sudan to Upper Nile state in South Sudan, the medical charity (MSF) said.
In a statement issued on Friday, MSF said thousands of returnees have been arriving sick and exhausted at the Bulukat transit centre in Malakal, northeastern South Sudan, after travelling almost 72 hours by boats on the White Nile River.
The Bulukat transit centre, the medical charity noted, hosts about 5,000 people at any one time, many of them having to wait for weeks for onward transfers.
The displaced people, it said, are without sufficient food, shelter or healthcare, as they live in temporary tents or out in the open during the rainy season.
“In our facilities in Malakal, we are recording an alarming rise in the number of measles and malnutrition cases, especially amongst children,” said Luz Linares, MSF Head of Mission in South Sudan.
“The mortality rate in our facilities is extremely high, as the patients arrive so late and sick that the medical teams at times are unable to save lives,” he added.
The MSF official called for an immediate scale up of medical and humanitarian response by humanitarian groups for people arriving from Sudan, from the time of entry into South Sudan, until their relocation to the areas of their choice.
Out of the total 245,000 people who have entered South Sudan to seek refuge since April, about 198,000 have crossed through Renk, in the far northeast of the country, according to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHRC).
Since July, MSF said it has been running a mobile clinic in the transit centre, providing over 100 medical consultations every day, adding that its teams are treating increasing numbers of measles cases and several malnourished children.
“What I have witnessed is really terrible, especially the living conditions,” said Apayi Dawa, MSF Nurse Supervisor in Bulukat, further adding, “People don’t have shelters. So, when it rains, the shelters are washed away by the water. We have people dying on the boats. They also have very limited food to eat.”
The international medical charity called for an immediate and urgent need to scale up response for improved, coordinated, and prompt assistance for basic necessities, particularly food, as well as shelter, hygiene and sanitation.
About 4.8 million people have been displaced inside and outside Sudan due to the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the UN said, amid concerns that an estimated 1 million people have crossed into neighbouring countries ever since the conflict in Sudan erupted on April 15.
(ST)