MSF warns of widespread “impunity” in the country
November 13 (EUROPA PRESS) –
In one of the most corrupt countries in the world, South Sudan, millions of people survive the combined effect of hunger, floods or intercommunal violence, an “inhumane” situation that for Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has reached its peak with the latest rains, which have caused disease, destruction of crops and thousands of displaced people.
If the consequences are not mitigated, close to two thirds of the population, which is equivalent to 7.8 million people, could suffer from acute food insecurity between April and July 2023, according to figures from the United Nations, which has warned that more More than a million people have been affected by the latest floods in South Sudan.
This meteorological phenomenon, which mainly affects the states of North Bahr el Ghazal, Warrap, Unity and Western Equatorial, in the north of the country, together with the increase in violence between tribes, has worsened the humanitarian situation in the African country, which is plunged into a transition process after the 2018 peace agreement between the government and the main rebel groups.
Despite the peace commitment signed between the president, Salva Kiir, and the rebel leader Riek Machar, South Sudan has been suffering since 2013 from recurring cycles of violence, famine and disease, such as malaria or cholera. This new episode of rains, however, has caused levels of severe food insecurity to soar to all-time highs.
In this way, the calls of the international community to raise funds by international organizations such as MSF, which has been working in the field for nearly 40 years, have begun to recur without this cocktail of disasters having been reduced, but more quite the opposite due, in part, to the supply crisis during the pandemic and also to the shortages caused by the war in Ukraine.
MSF’s mission in South Sudan is the organization’s largest and to which it dedicates the most financial resources, with nearly 4,000 workers in total, of which some 500 belong to the Spanish section, which is based in the capital. Yuba.
MSF is currently focused on three areas of work: at the capital level, where they work from the central hospital, which has hospitalization and 24-hour care; at the provincial level, from the health centers and, finally, at the community level, where they train citizens in case of humanitarian emergencies.
The most immediate needs in South Sudan are food, as well as other basic products, such as blankets or plastic sheets to shelter from the incessant rains. This supply often does not arrive due to intercommunity violence.
BLOCKAGES, THEFTS AND LACK OF SECURITY
“There are days when we cannot move because of the clashes,” warned Esperanza Santos, MSF coordinator in South Sudan, adding that this situation has been recurring since August and that when there are blockades and they cannot go to an area, people They are completely unprotected.
MSF is also in charge of supervising security during the movement of South Sudanese to the different health centers, which is normally done by boat on the Nile River, although road and air transport are also used.
In this sense, Santos has explained to Europa Press that they are in constant contact with the different actors to promote dialogue and trust, as well as to make it clear that, in the framework of these transfers of civilians, they are not harmful agents. “We never use armed escorts,” he explained.
The increase in insecurity due to the presence of armed groups in the areas most affected by the floods not only impedes the humanitarian work of the NGO –despite the studies it carries out on the ground before carrying out the trips–, but It also endangers the workers themselves.
Santos has alluded to theft of sanitary supplies at gunpoint. In fact, last March MSF “strongly” condemned the thefts against its medical team on a road on the outskirts of Yei, in the southwest of the country, on February 28.
The MSF coordinator in South Sudan has thus lamented the death of at least nine humanitarian workers so far this year, a considerably high figure, although she has also defended the theory that the focus must be civilians, who live day by day to day with massacres such as murders, rapes or burning of bodies in the villages, among others.
Still, he has emphasized widespread “impunity” for violence in South Sudan, where justice systems are virtually non-existent. In addition to the limited resources of the Government, which is unable to deal with the current humanitarian situation, it is added that it is the “most corrupt country in the world”, coming to occupy the last position -180 out of 180– in the ranking Prepared by the NGO Transparency International.
FORCED RECRUITMENT AND SEXUAL VIOLENCE
According to the United Nations, a child soldier is a minor who has been recruited or used by an armed group to carry out tasks ranging from active participation in conflicts, even carrying weapons on the front lines, to occupying minor but essential positions.
Santos is currently unaware of this practice in South Sudan, prohibited by Humanitarian Law and defined as a war crime by the International Criminal Court, although he has warned that many young South Sudanese may be in danger of being forcibly recruited. .
The situation of young people is especially critical, since many of them “have not known any other reality” than inter-community violence and have been born and raised in refugee camps such as Malakal, which has added nearly 18,000 in recent months. people. “They have no prospects for the future,” added Santos.
On the other hand, Santos also recalled that another of the challenges facing South Sudan is sexual and gender violence, which is “a reality”, since they receive cases of women who have suffered rape and who “are forced to marry the rapist”. According to the organization’s own data, more than 1,600 victims of sexual violence were treated in 2021.
Already in September, the president of the UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan, Yasmin Sooka, denounced that in areas of Western Equatoria there are no courts to deal with this type of crime, to which is added that sometimes the Women do not report cases because they live with the aggressors.
SANITARY SITUATION
MSF warned in September that cuts to the South Sudanese Common Health Fund (HPF), which amount to 30 percent of the budget of this organization, whose purpose is to finance primary care, would affect access to health services. health specialists in infectious diseases.
In addition, as the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned, cholera is re-emerging in its deadliest form around the world, helped in part by climate change, as extreme weather events such as deluges, cyclones and droughts further reduce access to drinking water.
However, in a more positive tone, Santos highlighted that cholera, a disease whose resurgence at a global level has been warned by the World Health Organization (WHO), has an increasingly lower incidence in favor of malaria, which is still resist leaving the country. Even so, from MSF they have insisted that more financing is necessary to ensure basic and quality health services for millions of people.
