Fourteen children under five years of age have died in one week from preventable diseases in a United Nations ‘protection of civilians’ camp in Bentiu, the capital of South Sudan’s Unity state.
Child welfare agency UNICEF said eight of the deaths were from malnutrition-related causes while the others were due to malaria, pneumonia, and acute watery diarrhoea.
These deaths represent two children under five dying per day in the camp of over 100,000 total people. Though UNICEF noted this is an “increasingly high” number of deaths, it remains below the emergency threshold of 2 children under five dying per day out of 10,000.
The humanitarian group said a Child Survival Taskforce is giving out more mosquito nets and upping feeding programs in the camp to control the situation.
At around this season last year, three children were dying every day in the Bentiu camp which at the time housed 30,000 to 45,000 people.