Local officials and residents in South Sudan’s Greater Pibor Administrative Area (GPAA) capital, Pibor town have decried the lack of access to healthcare services a week after the aid workers operating there were evacuated over threats by local youth.
“The situation for us is very terrible. After the aid workers evacuated, there are no good services at the Pibor PHCC. Again, the floods are still there,” Simon Rasho, one Pibor resident, told Radio Tamazuj over the weekend.
On October 5, dozens of aid workers were evacuated from Pibor town following a rise in threats against them by local youth. The disgruntled youth group accused the aid workers of occupying positions they say belong to the local community.
The GPAA health minister John Achon Giro decried the humanitarian situation there, saying a huge health gap has been created by the evacuation over a week ago.
“Aid workers have been supporting our works. So, since the evacuation, we are facing some health issues. Access to some health services is no more because of the lack of funds. Two weeks ago, we received Covid-19 vaccines. We are not able to train vaccinators and launch the program because our partners are not there,” Achon said.
The health minister warned the situation could worsen in the coming weeks if the current trend continues, and he called on the aid agencies to resume, saying the government will provide protection.
“After the aid workers left, there has been no medical supplies amid the rising floodwaters. So, we appeal to our partners to come and salvage the situation. No one will harm them because the youth agreed to desist from violence and as a government we are there for them,” he said.
For his part, Juma Rudolf, a Pibor youth leader, also called for humanitarian work resumption, saying that they were only demanding their job shares in the aid organizations.
“Except those whose names appeared in the list, all the aid workers are free to come and work in Pibor. The humanitarian organizations are free to come. Nobody has chased them from Greater Pibor,” he said.
Since the start of the year, the aid workers have been threatened by local youth in parts of the country, leading to the suspension of humanitarian activities and the relocation of the workers.
Last week, the Humanitarian Coordinator ad interim in South Sudan, Mathew Hollingworth strongly condemned the latest threat against the humanitarian organizations, and called for their protection, warning that response operations to more than 100,000 vulnerable people in GPAA will be impacted.