South Sudan: MSF Urges Support for Flood Victims

Doctors Without Borders, also known as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), has called on humanitarian actors to act now, as people in Unity State, northern South Sudan, continue to live in poor conditions.

Spread across several makeshift camp sites, people face food insecurity, a loss of income, malnutrition, and a lack of safe drinking water eight months since flooding began.

An estimated 835,000 people have been affected, according to MSF.

Data from the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) suggests about 65,000 hectares of cultivated land have been damaged due to floods, while over 800,000 livestock died across eight of South Sudan’s ten states.

It is understood that having lost so much of their cattle, many displaced women are resorting to collecting firewood to make an income.

‘There are immense needs, including the need for proper shelters, clean water and sanitation infrastructure, quality health care, food security and livelihood support’, MSF Medical Team Leader, Dr Reza Eshaghian, said in a statement.

‘Humanitarian groups, donors and the South Sudanese government need to act now, before it is too late. They cannot afford to wait any longer’.

For most of those displaced, it has become almost impossible to find safe drinking water, according to the humanitarian outfit.

‘Our only source of water for drinking, cooking and washing is the floodwater’, MSF quoted Nyapal, a mother of four, as saying.

It was gathered that before the flooding around Bentiu, sanitation facilities in the IDP camp were already in a critical condition and rarely maintained.

‘For a while, flooding meant it was impossible to access the waste treatment ponds. This led to an accumulation of sewage in the camp latrines, which then overflowed into the open sewer canals, where children frequently play’, MSF Water and Sanitation Team Leader, Cawo Yassin Ali, said.

With the water levels slowly starting to recede around Bentiu, it is still not clear when thousands of displaced people will be able to return home.

Source: MSF

Photo source: MSF

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