MSF calls for urgent humanitarian access to remote areas in S. Sudan
July 23, 2015 (KAMPALA) – Doctors Without Borders or MSF, has called on the warring parties in South Sudan to ease humanitarian access to the vulnerable populations trapped in rural areas, saying the organization had been facing difficulty trying to deliver aid assistance to the affected areas.
“Tens of thousands of people have been without access to medical care for three months,” said William Robertson, MSF’s program manager for South Sudan, in a statement extended to Sudan Tribune on Thursday.
“This is happening amidst a new wave of violence threatening the lives of countless civilians,” he said.
Malakal town, capital of Upper Nile state, has changed hands several times in the past 19 months of the conflict with many residents vacating residential areas in fear of harm by either side.
However, MSF said in the past one month it had once ferried medical and food supplies to its health facility in Wau Shilluk, some few kilometres outside Malakal town, but added many children still suffered from acute malnutrition in the area.
“There are 77 children with severe acute malnutrition in MSF’s outpatient therapeutic feeding programme, but there is currently no way to resupply them with essential ready-to-use therapeutic food,” the statement read, owing to heavy military presence in the area which scared and displaced people.
“Many people have fled to the nearby ‘protection of civilians’ site. The site is not a place of safety,” MSF said, adding that it treated nine people wounded in a shooting attack which directly targeted the site in early July.
On 19-20 July, the organization’s hospital in Malakal had received 36 wounded civilians, including 16 women and five children, who had been travelling in a truck when they were attacked by an armed group.
Some, it said, had multiple blast injuries caused by grenades and others had bullet wounds. Five needed emergency surgery. “This is just one example of countless episodes of violence against civilians in Upper Nile state,” said the Doctors Without Borders.
The statement further stressed that many citizens left Malakal and headed to Melut county, north of the state capital, also adding a big number of people were in dire need of assistance after its medical activities were suspended in the area for six weeks.
“The continuing violence in South Sudan is forcing ordinary people to live in inhumane conditions,” said Robertson. “People are being exposed to continual violence, increased displacement, and fear of attacks, disease outbreaks and the risk of starvation.”
MSF said it was deeply concerned about the continued denial for aid organizations to access areas affected by the conflict and other remote areas of South Sudan, and appealed to the warring parties to allow provision of life-saving assistance to the people.
(ST)