Sudan-South Sudan - Aid to Refugees 'Race Against Time'
21 June 2012
Jamam/ Kilometre 18, Upper Nile State — Aid agencies working in northern
South Sudan are worried about refugees from Sudan's war-torn Blue Nile State
who are reaching under-resourced camps in increasingly poor health.
In recent weeks over 35,000 people have flocked to a site 50km from the
border known as Kilometre 18 (KM18) by aid agencies - the distance to the
nearest refugee camp (Jamam) holding over 30,000 people.
The war in Blue Nile between Sudan's government forces and rebels has raged
since September 2011.
Several refugees from Bau County said they had joined an exodus of people
fleeing recent shelling, bomber planes and soldiers attacking villages.
"We were running from the war," said 22-year-old Hawegu Oram Junjal, who
arrived from Mugum village three days ago. "There was no one left in the
village when we fled."
The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) last week said it expected up to 15,000 more
people to cross from Blue Nile in the coming weeks to join over 100,000
refugees already in Maban County in South Sudan's Upper Nile State.
"I saw the army coming and the plane came and bombed so we ran away," said
Anim Chapa, who, like many others, is now being treated at a Médecins Sans
Frontières (MSF) clinic for dehydration at KM18.
After weeks and sometimes months of walking, aid agencies say refugees are
arriving in places like KM18 (which have limited water and no sanitation)
increasingly exhausted, malnourished, and in poor health.
KM18 under pressure
MSF doctor Erna Rijnierse said that last week, the clinic carried out 500
consultations, whereas half way through this week 900 people had already
been seen.
Half of the consultations are for diarrhoea, with increasing cases of bloody
diarrhoea from persistent dehydration and poor hygiene.
"There's not enough clean water, so people drink from pools of dirty water
and get diarrhoea," said an MSF worker as she handed out cup after cup of
rehydrating fluid mostly to women, children and the elderly.
MSF said malnutrition was above emergency levels and particularly prevalent
in children under five, for whom diarrhoea can prove fatal.
"Four out of eight children in the family have diarrhoea" from drinking
dirty water, said Junjal.
"On the way, there was no food, no water", and some people died from bad
water or a lack of it, claiming they could not walk any more, said Chapa.
"You are already vulnerable, you have very little to eat and you've been a
refugee for four weeks, so if you suffer from diarrhoea, then it is quite
easy to cross the line from being a normal kid to having severe
malnutrition," said Rijnierse.
Aid agencies fear that if the lack of water, poor sanitation and rising
diarrhoeal diseases cannot be solved, the possibility of disease outbreaks
is very real. "You've got poor water, poor sanitation and poor hygiene...
The risk of that turning into cholera is very high," said Pauline Ballaman,
Oxfam's humanitarian coordinator in South Sudan.
MSF has vaccinated over half the child target group in KM18 for measles and
hopes to achieve 90 percent coverage to avert an outbreak. It is also trying
to deliver cholera kits and, in case of an outbreak, has earmarked sections
of its tented hospital in Jamam.
Eating trees
"When we came from there to here, we brought a little bit of sorghum with
us, but when we crossed over, the food ran out, and we were just eating the
leaves of trees," said Chapa.
The sight of small children in rags eating the whitish flesh from a tree
stump is apparently not rare. "We've seen children eating bark at the side
of the road," said Rijnierse.
"People need very basic things like shelter when it rains and they need
proper food. There is food distribution going on but some people need
something extra," she added.
MSF said it only had the capacity to treat the worst cases of malnutrition,
and expects to have a much bigger caseload during the six-month rains, due
to a lack of shelter and mosquito nets.
"The rainy season has started, and we are seeing the first cases of malaria
and respiratory diseases," said Rijnierse.
Poor road access
It is a race against time before rains cut off access to transit points like
KM18 and places like El Foj, just inside South Sudan, where refugees often
rest before moving on.
UNHCR is trying to move 2,000 people per day to permanent camps using buses
and trucks, but five days after the last rain, buses from Jamam to KM18 are
getting stuck in the sticky clay.
"Normally it takes us about half an hour to get there [Jamam]. After one
night of rain, it took about 4.5 hours," Rijnierse said.
Water at KM18's two 'hafirs' (man-made watering holes) is only expected to
last another week, while rains could cut off aid agency access.
"The problem is that nothing is easy here. The roads are a nightmare. They
turn into some kind of mud that sticks to everything," said Rijnierse.
But even if refugees are moved in time, they will face similar water
shortages in the camps that are already over their capacity.
"There is not enough space now in the camps. They are not ready and the
rainy season is starting. It's too late, we have to react right now," warned
MSF's Maban County coordinator, Patrick Swartenbroek.
Air access
A girl waits to get off one of the many UNHCR buses and trucks shuttling
people away from a site called km 18 near the Sudan border to a new refugee
camp called Yusuf Batil in South Sudan's Upper Nile state
Maban County has an airstrip near Doro refugee camp, but the lack of other
airstrips in the area has sparked concern among charities which believe
Jamam, a new site called Yusuf Batil, and KM18 could be cut off.
On 16-17 June UNHCR gained access to government-and-oil-company-owned
Paloich airport in Melut County 90km from Jamam and 150km from Doro.
"We needed a much swifter delivery system, as the number of refugees in
Upper Nile rapidly surpassed our original planning assumptions," said UNHCR
representative Mireille Girard. "Whereas we had planned for 75,000 refugees,
we are already counting some 105,000 - with several thousand more reportedly
about to cross the border from Blue Nile State."
Since 16 June, the agency has flown in thousands of plastic sheets,
blankets, jerry cans, kitchen sets, mosquito nets, sleeping mats, in
addition to more materials to construct wells, and piping. UNHCR said it is
also planning to fly 5,000 tents from Nairobi to Paloich.
UNHCR recently appealed for an extra US$40 million to address the refugee
crisis in Upper Nile and in neighbouring Unity State, where around 50,000
refugees have fled conflict in Sudan's South Kordofan State since June.
Girard said only $34 million of UNHCR's initial appeal for $111 million had
been secured, and that the agency had now exhausted its emergency reserves.
Boreholes
Meanwhile, Oxfam has been struggling to meet water and sanitation demands
for months in an area with black-cotton soil and drill rigs which have dug
boreholes that have simply collapsed.
In Jamam people are getting 5-7 litres of water a day, while the standard is
15 litres.
Oxfam's Ballaman said it had been impossible to get drill rigs big enough to
match existing boreholes that are about 150m deep and were drilled by oil
companies operating nearby. "It's an ongoing battle just to provide some of
the basics... It's been a long time since we've had a positive borehole."
Oxfam hopes that some of the riverbeds they have found have water
underneath, while MSF is setting up pipes to try and transport water from
other 'hafirs' nearer Jamam.
"It's all terribly hit-or-miss, and there are no guarantees that this is
going to be enough," said Ballaman.
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Received on Thu Jun 21 2012 - 16:23:59 EDT
