This sudden and massive influx of refugees has exacerbated an already unstable situation in South Sudan, where political and ethnic violence, famine and natural disasters continue to blight the country devastated by the 2013-2018 civil war.
When fighting broke out in mid-April in Sudan, Rosa Yusuf Elias set out on foot with her seven children towards her native South Sudan, hoping to find safety there.
The family has left the violence behind but has been stuck for weeks on the other side of the border in an isolated and unsanitary camp filled with tens of thousands of unexpectedly arrived people, some 50 kilometers from the town of Renk in South Sudan.
Rosa said, “This place is full of flies and snakes, and the food is not good,” noting that “some of our children … had diarrhea, and in the past few days, three children died in this camp.”
For her part, refugee Santuki Danga said, “We are in pain, children are dying.” “We line up to get porridge for the children and at the water point people fight and (there is no) safety and sometimes hyenas come,” she added.
This sudden and massive influx of refugees has exacerbated an already unstable situation in South Sudan, where political and ethnic violence, famine and natural disasters continue to blight the country devastated by the 2013-2018 civil war.
In normal times, NGOs make great efforts to meet the basic needs of the population in a country where two-thirds of the population depends on humanitarian aid.
Since the fighting began in neighboring Sudan nearly two months ago, more than 100,000 people have fled to South Sudan, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Dehydration and malnutrition
At the camp near Renk, some arrive on donkeys because they are too weak to walk. Children are among the hardest hit, suffering from dehydration and malnutrition after the harrowing journey of hundreds of kilometers across semi-arid lands in South Sudan.
In the long line outside the clinic, Connie Bok and his one-and-a-half-year-old daughter wait to see a doctor. The girl suffers from acute malnutrition, a life-threatening condition.
“I felt sick, and there was no medicine in Khartoum because of the fighting,” said this father of two, “it took two weeks to get here, and on the way she only took water and milk from her mother.”
Assunta Agok, who works for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, confirmed that a large number of people died shortly after their arrival, including an infant. “The child was suffering from a devastating illness and there was no medical team on the ground to provide assistance,” she said.
The World Food Program and other humanitarian organizations working in the camp warn that the situation could get worse.
“This place is not able to receive these people and help them,” said Leonidas Rugimalila, head of the World Food Program in Renk. “With the rainy season (from April to November), we can expect diseases like cholera (…) and malnutrition cases can increase,” he added.
no way
Many would like to leave the camp, but Renk is located in a remote area in the north-east of South Sudan, which is not safe and is affected by floods.
“We heard that if we got here it would help us get home. But now we’re stuck,” sighs Christina Nyalwak Guag, who shields her six children from the scorching sun with her only sheet.
Some want to go to the capital, Juba, 800 kilometers away without public transportation, through swamps and wild nature, at risk of armed attacks, on dirt roads that could be impassable in the rainy season.
“There is no route from Renk to other regions of the country, so it has to be done mainly by river or air transport which is very expensive,” said Leonidas Rugimalila.
What makes waiting worse is the explosion of commodity prices in the markets surrounding Renk.
More than 800,000 South Sudanese were living in Sudan when the conflict broke out, most of them refugees displaced by decades of victorious independence fighting in 2011, and the ensuing bloody civil war between 2013 and 2018.
The ethnic political violence from which they fled has not stopped as the country experiences four consecutive years of record floods.
“Many communities in South Sudan have been permanently displaced due to climate change, and new arrivals may return without being able to recognize or even access the areas they left,” the UNHCR said in a statement on June 7.
Stephen Tuck, 32, left Sudan knowing that he would certainly not be able to reach his homeland in Bentiu, a northern town completely cut off from the world by the floods. But for him, this is not important. “I didn’t want to die in a place that was not my home,” he said.
