Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has treated at least 150 people wounded in Malakal since Tuesday, including both civilians and fighters hurt in battle for control of the city.
Most were treated by MSF and Red Cross (ICRC) doctors at the UNMISS clinic inside the peacekeepers’ base. “They suffered gunshot wounds from the clashes in town as well as injuries as a result of inter-communal fighting in the camp,” the organization MSF explained in a press release today.
Other patients were brought by opposition forces eastward from Malakal back to the town of Nasser, where MSF also runs a medical facility. More than 55 gunshot wounded patients were treated there.
According to the aid group, the security of the UN base itself is now in doubt: “MSF fears that the escalating levels of violence are threatening the security of the population even in… the UN compound, which hosts over 21,000 people.”
Patients allegedly killed
In the same press statement Thursday, MSF cited witnesses among the displaced population in the camp as saying that killings and rapes of patients and relatives took place “in the only functional hospital in town.”
Col. Philip Aguer, the army spokesman, today gave the same report, telling Radio Tamazuj that armed civilians loyal to Riek Machar “carried out an attack on Malakal Hospital and killed the sick and killed innocent people.”
MSF also confirmed that the hospital was looted. They were working in the facility until Monday, after which the doctors fled to the UN base.
File photo: A nurse examines a man with a gunshot wound at a hospital in Gumuruk (MSF)