Millions of people in South Sudan, one of the most corrupt countries in the world, manage to survive the combined effects of hunger, floods, or intercommunal violence. According to Doctors Without Borders (MSF), this “inhumane” situation has reached a new high with the recent rains, which have resulted in disease, crop destruction, and thousands of displaced people.
According to statistics from the United Nations, which have warned that more people might suffer from acute food insecurity between April and July 2023 if the effects are not reduced, close to two thirds of the population, or 7.8 million people, could. The most recent floods in South Sudan have had a negative impact on more than one million people.
The humanitarian situation in the African nation, which is currently undergoing a transition process following the 2018 peace agreement between the government and the main rebel groups, has gotten worse as a result of this meteorological phenomenon, which primarily affects the states of North Bahr el Ghazal, Warrap, Unity, and Western Equatorial, in the north of the country.
Despite the agreement on peace that the president, Salva Kiir, and the rebel leader, Riek Machar, signed, South Sudan has been plagued by cyclical violence, starvation, and illnesses like malaria or cholera since 2013. However, this most recent round of rain has led to record-breaking levels of extreme food insecurity.
Due in part to the supply crisis during the pandemic as well as the shortages brought on by the war in Ukraine, international organizations like MSF, which has been working in the field for close to 40 years, have started to make calls to the international community for financial support. However, this has not led to a reduction in the cocktail of disasters.
The largest and most financially resource-intensive mission of MSF is in South Sudan, where it employs approximately 4,000 people, 500 of whom are in the Spanish-speaking division, which is situated in the nation’s capital. Yuba.
MSF is currently concentrating on three areas of work: at the capital level, where they work from the central hospital, which offers hospitalization and round-the-clock care; at the provincial level, from the health centers; and, lastly, at the community level, where they educate residents on how to respond to humanitarian emergencies.
Food and other necessities like blankets or plastic sheets to protect from the relentless rains are the most urgently needed items in South Sudan. As a result of intercommunity conflict, this supply frequently does not arrive.
BLOCKAGES, THEFTS, AND A SEAMLESS SETTLEMENT
Esperanza Santos, the MSF coordinator in South Sudan, said that “there are days when we cannot travel because of the conflicts,” noting that this situation has been occurring since August and that when there are blockades and they cannot access an area, people are absolutely unsafe.
MSF is also in charge of overseeing security while South Sudanese are transported to various health facilities, typically by boat on the Nile River but sometimes occasionally by road and by air.
In this regard, Santos has highlighted to Europa Press that they are in constant communication with the various actors to foster discussion and confidence as well as to make it obvious that they are not destructive actors within the context of these transfers of civilians. He said, “We never deploy armed escorts.
Despite the studies the NGO conducts on the ground before making the journeys, the increase in security caused by the presence of armed groups in the areas most hit by the floods not only hinders the humanitarian work of the NGO but also puts the workers themselves in risk.
Santos has suggested that sanitary products were stolen under duress. In reality, on March 1 of last year, MSF “strongly” criticized the February 28 robberies against its medical team that occurred on a road near Yei, in the southwest of the nation.
The MSF coordinator in South Sudan has thus bemoaned the loss of at least nine aid workers thus far this year, a startlingly high number, but she has also defended the idea that the focus must be on civilians, who regularly endure massacres like murders, rapes, or the burning of bodies in villages, among other atrocities.
Nevertheless, he has stressed the pervasive “impunity” for violence in South Sudan, a country with essentially no justice processes. In addition to the government’s meager resources and inability to address the current humanitarian crisis, it is also stated that the country is the “most corrupt in the world,” landing it in last place (180 out of 180) in the rating created by the NGO Transparency International.
Forced labor and sexual assault
A child soldier, as defined by the United Nations, is a kid who has been enlisted or employed by an armed group to perform duties ranging from direct engagement in conflicts—including carrying weapons on the front lines—to holding minor but crucial positions.
Santos has cautioned that many young South Sudanese may be in danger of being enlisted for military service without their will, but he is currently unaware of this practice in South Sudan, which is against humanitarian law and is classified as a war crime by the International Criminal Court.
Young people’s circumstances are particularly dire because many of them “have not known any other reality” than intercommunal violence and were born and reared in refugee camps like Malakal, which has seen a recent increase of roughly 18,000 people. Santos continued, “They have no possibilities for the future.”
On the other hand, Santos also noted that sexual and gender violence, which is “a reality” as they hear cases of women who have been raped and who “are compelled to marry the rapist,” is another issue that South Sudan faces. According to information provided by the organization, more than 1,600 victims of sexual assault received treatment in 2021.
Yasmin Sooka, the president of the UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan, made the claim that there are no tribunals for this kind of crime in some parts of Western Equatoria as early as September. She said that sometimes women do not report crimes because they live with the perpetrators.
HEALTH CONDITION
Access to health services would be impacted, MSF said in September, by cuts to the South Sudanese Common Health Fund (HPF), which account for 30% of this organization’s budget and is intended to pay primary care. experts in infectious illnesses in medicine.
Additionally, as the World Health Organization (WHO) has cautioned, the worst strain of cholera is once again spreading throughout the world, in part due to climate change as extreme weather events like deluges, cyclones, and droughts further restrict access to drinking water.
Santos, however, emphasized in a more upbeat manner that malaria, which is still resisted leaving the nation, has a lower incidence than cholera, a disease whose reappearance at a global level has been warned by the World Health Organization (WHO). However, MSF has maintained that additional funding is required in order to guarantee that millions of people have access to basic and high-quality medical care.