Red Cross inaugurates rehabilitation center for disabled in South Sudan

January 4, 2008 (KHARTOUM/JUBA) — The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) will inaugurate tomorrow the first center for physical rehabilitation for disabled people in southern Sudan.

After more than two decades of war in southern Sudan, the Sudanese government led by the National Congress Party and the former rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement signed a peace deal on January 9, 2005. The armed conflict left an estimated 35,000 disabled people in this part of the country.

“Many people in Southern Sudan are physically disabled because of gunshot wounds or other injuries sustained during the decades of war that devastated the region,” said Patrick Vial, head of the ICRC Sudan delegation.

“The centre will improve their access to good-quality prostheses, orthoses, crutches and physiotherapy, which they need to live with dignity,” he added.
The new Red Cross center for disabled people is built and equipped with a total roofed area of 1200 m2 at a cost of 1.8 million US dollar. It will be able to treat and accommodate with all necessary facilities 60 inpatients and will serve up to 100 patients per month.

The facility will be officially inaugurated on 5 January in the presence of representatives of the Government of Southern Sudan.

The ICRC’s physical rehabilitation programmes aim to enable the disabled to regain mobility, thereby helping them to become economically independent and to be fully integrated into society.

To maintain the quality and sustainability of the services offered, the ICRC sponsored the enrolment of 26 Southern Sudanese from the Ministry of Gender, Social Welfare and Religious Affairs in various training courses in Rwanda and Tanzania, and within Sudan.

The ICRC has been caring for the war-wounded in Southern Sudan since 1984, mainly out of the hospital it managed in Lokichokio, in neighbouring Kenya until 2006.
Elsewhere in Sudan, the ICRC is also providing physical rehabilitation services in Khartoum, Nyala, Kadugli, Kasala and Damazin.

(ST)