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DORO - 16 Jul 2012

Hunger threatens refugees in Blue Nile

Displaced people within Blue Nile state and refugees who fled the violence toward South Sudan are threatened with starvation, according to recent arrivals at Doro Camp. The spread of diseases, the absence of aid organizations and inadequate amounts of food, medicine and water in Blue Nile have made for abysmal humanitarian conditions.

A leader of the Baldogo, one of southern Blue Nile's many tribes, told Radio Tamazuj that thousands of people fleeing violence are stranded in the areas of Baldogo, Wadega (Wadaka), and Mount Fartaka on their way to refugee camps in the Upper Nile State in South Sudan. Sheikh Mohamed Mahjoub, who recently arrived to Doro Camp in Upper Nile, said also that increasingly corpses can be found among the groups of refugees.

Refugees remaining in Blue Nile are said to have run out of food and face poor security conditions in the region, which falls under the control of the SPLM-Northern Sector. They also complain of the total absence of organizations working in the humanitarian field, which exacerbated the poor conditions of the residents and displaced people, and stressed on the lack of medicine and basic services in Baldogo and Mount Fartaka which led to the spread of diseases among children and mothers. One of the refugees added that hunger now threatens the lives of those stranded in Blue Nile amid an increase in hunger-related death cases.