The UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported today that aid workers in Wau have registered reports of 40 missing children as well as scores of unaccompanied or separated children.
This number includes only those reported to aid workers at the UNMISS protection site in Wau, which aid groups are able to access. Tens of thousands displaced in the Greater Baggari Area are largely cut off from assistance.
“Many children were separated from their families during the fighting,” OCHA said in a bulletin circulated today.
OCHA added that the aid workers registered nine unaccompanied children, 120 separated children and reports of 40 missing children.
These reports were registered at a ‘Help Desk’ set up by protection workers in Wau.
Recent violence in Wau involved clashes between SPLA-IO and SPLA troops as well as ethnically targeted attacks on civilians.
The UN agency said that they plan to reach villages outside of Wau town in the coming days, specifically in the Greater Baggari area, to provide assistance. Many of these villages were already hosting people displaced during the February 2016 fighting. OCHA says “their coping capacities have been seriously strained.”